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THE BLACK DRIVER. 






AMERICAN NOTES 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION 



CHARLES DICKENS 




\>0< 



4fy '^^ ^on.o-;.. 






^ BOSTON: 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS 

1867. 



7] \M^ . 



Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent, 
Second April, 1867. 

By a special arrangement made with me and my English Publishers (partners with me 
in the copyright of my works), Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of Boston, have become 
the only authorized representatives in America of the whole series of my books. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 






University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 

Cambridge. 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 



The following editorial in the " New York Tribune " of October 24th has led to 
the issue of this edition of American Notes : — 

" We regret to observe that one or two journals are spiteful enough to print 
some very unkind remarks about Charles Dickens, in anticipation of his forthcom- 
ing visit to America. Mr. Dickens said some pretty hard things of us many years 
ago ; but it is by no means certain that we did not deserve them ; and even if we 
did not, any man of sense ought to know that whatever little injury he ever did 
us has been twenty times outweighed by the substantial good he has conferred 
upon the world. The fact is, we doubt whether those who are now rudest in their 
j censure of the great novelist know how much truth and good sense are embodied 
.' in the writings with which they principally find fault, and how groundless is the 
assertion that he ' abused the hospitality ' which we forced upon him. It would 
1 be a wise thing — good for Mr. Dickens and good for ourselves — if our publishers 
would take the present opportunity to put upon the market a new edition of the 
American Notes ; that would help us to know how little we had to complain of 
from the hands of our guest, how much we have mended in our manners, and how 
much there is still to meud." 



PREFACE. 



flr My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the influences 

Tand tendencies which I distrusted in America had any existence but in my imagi- 

•. nation. They can examine for themselves whether there has been anything in 

the public career of that country since, at home or abroad, which suggests that 

.those influences and tendencies really did exist. As they find the fact, they will 

•judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going in any direction that I 

ihave indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If they 

-jidiscern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken, — but not wil- 

.fully. 

4 Prejudiced I am not, and never have been, otherwise than in favor of the Unit- 
^3d States. I have many friends in America, I feel a grateful interest in the coun- 
<[;ry, I hope and believe it will successfully work out a problem of the highest im- 
jDortance to the whole human race. To represent me as viewing America with 
;i|ll-nature, coldness, or animosity, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is 
vlways a very easy one. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. Going Away 7 

II. The Passage Out 11 

III. Boston 18 

IV. An American Railroad. Lowell and its Factory System . 3G 
V. Worcester. The Connecticut River. Hartford. New Haven. 

To New York 40 

VI. New York 44 

VII. Philadelphia and its Solitary Prison 53 

Vin. Washington. The Legislature. And the President's House 60 
IX. A Night Steamer on the Potomac River. Virginia Road, and a 
Black Driver. Richmond. Baltimore. The Harrisburg 
Mail, and a Glimpse of the City. A Canal-Boat . . .68 
X. Some further Account of the Canal-Boat, its Domestic Econo- 
my, AND ITS Passengers. Journey to Pittsburg across the 

Alleghany Mountains. Pittsburg 76 

XI. From Pittsburg to Cincinnati in a Western Steamboat. Cin- 
cinnati .81 

XII. From Cincinnati to Louisville in another Western Steam- 
boat ; AND FROM Louisville to St. Louis in another. St. 

Louis 85 

Xin. A Jaunt to the Looking-Glass Prairie and back ... 90 
XIV. Return to Cincinnati. A Stage-Coach Ride from that City 
to Columbus, and thence to Sandusky. So, by Lake Erie, 

to the Falls of Niagara 94 

XV. In Canada ; Toronto ; Kingston ; Montreal ; Quebec ; St. John's. 
In the United States again ; Lebanon ; the Shaker Village ; 

AND West Point 102 

The Passage Home HI 

Slavery 115 

Concluding Remarks • . . ... . . .122 



AMERICAN NOTES 



CHAPTER I. 



GOING AWAY. 



I SHALL never forget the one-fourth se- 
rious and three-fourths comical astonish- 
ment with Avhich, on the morning of the 
third of January, eighteen hundred and 
forty-two, I opened the door of, and put my 
head into, a " state-room " on board the 
Britannia steam-packet, twelve hundred 
tons' burden per register, bound for Halifax 
and Boston, and carrying her Majesty's 
mails. 

That this state-room had been specially 
engaged for " Charles Dickens, Esquire, 
and Lady " was rendered sufficiently clear 
even to my scared intellect by a very small 
manuscript, announcing the flict, which was 
pinned on a very fiat quilt, covering a very 
thin mattress spread like a surgical plaster 
on a most inaccessible shelf But that this 
was the state-room concerning which Charles 
Dickens, Esquire, and Lady had held daily 
and nightly conferences for at least four 
months preceding ; that this could by any 
possibility bs that small snug chamber of 
the imagination which Charles Dickens, Es- 
quire, with the spirit of prophecy strong 
upon him, had always foretold would con- 
tain at least one little sofa, and which his 
lady, with a modest yet most magnificent 
sense of its limited dimensions, had from the 
first opined would not hold more than two 
enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner 
out of sight (portmanteaus which could now 
no more be got in at the door, not to say 
stowed away, than a giraffe could be per- 
suaded or forced into a flower-pot) ; that 
this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hope- 
less, and profoundly preposterous box had 
the remotest reference to, or connection 
with, those chaste and pretty, not to say 



gorgeous, little bowers sketched by a mas- 
terly hand in the highly varnished litho- 
graphic plan hanging up in the agent's 
counting-house in the city of London ; that 
this room of state, in short, could be any- 
thing but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest 
of the captain's, invented and put in prac- 
tice for the better relish and enjoyment of 
the real state-room presently to be disclosed ; 
— these were truths which I really could 
not, for the moment, bring my mind at all 
to bear upon or comprehend. And I sat 
down upon a kind of horse-hair slab, or 
perch, of which there were two within ; and 
looked, without any expression of counte- 
nance whatever, at some friends who had 
come on board with us, and who were 
crushing their faces into all manner of 
shapes by endeavoring to squeeze them 
through the small doorway. 

We had experienced a pretty smart 
shock before coming below, which, but that 
we were the most sanguine people living, 
might have prepared us for the worst. The 
imaginative artist to whom I have already 
made allusion has depicted in the same 
great work a chamber of almost intermina- 
ble perspective, furnished, as Mr. Robins 
would say, in a style of more than Eastern 
splendor, and filled (but not inconveniently 
so) with groups of ladies and gentlemen, in 
the very highest state of enjoyment and 
vivacity. Before descending into the bow- 
els of the ship we had pas; cd from the deck 
into a long narrow apartment, not unlike a 
gigantic hearse with windows in the sides, 
having at the upper end a melancholy 
stove, at which three or four chilly stewards 
were warming their hands, while on either 
side, extending down its whole dreary 
length, was a long, long table, over each of 
which a rack, fixed to the low roof, and 
stuck full of drinking-glasses and cruet- 



AMERICAN NOTES 



stands, hinted dismally at rolling seas and 
heavy weather. I had not at that time 
seen the ideal presentment of this chamber 
which has since gratified me so much, but I 
observed that one of our friends who had 
made the arrangements for our voyage 
turned pale on entering, retreated on the 
friend behind him, smote his forehead in- 
voluntarily, and said, below his breath, 
" Impossible ! it cannot be ! " or words to 
that elfect. He recovered himself however 
by a great effort, and, after a preparatory 
cough or two, cried, with a ghastly smile 
which is still before me, looking at the same 
time round the walls, " Ha ! the breakfast- 
room, steward, — eh ? " We all foresaw 
what the answer must be ; we knew the ag- 
ony he suffered. He had often spoken of 
the saloon ; had taken in and lived upon the 
pictorial idea ; had usually given us to un- 
derstand, at home, that, to form a just con- 
ception of it, it would be necessary to multi- 
ply the size and furniture of an ordinary 
drawing-room by seven, and then fall short 
of the reality. When the man in reply 
avowed the truth, the blunt, remorseless, 
naked truth, " This is the saloon, sir," he 
actually reeled beneath the blow. 

In persons who were so soon to part, 
and interpose between their else daily com- 
munication the formidable barrier of many 
thousand miles of stormy space, and who 
were for that reason anxious to cast no 
other cloud, not even the passing shadow of 
a moment's disappointment or discomfiture, 
upon the short interval of happy compan- 
ionship that yet remained to them, — in 
persons so situated, the natural transition 
from these first surprises was obviously into 
peals of hearty laughter ; and I can report 
that I, for one, being still seated upon the 
slab or perch before mentioned, roared out- 
right until the vessel rang again. Thus, 
in less than two minutes after coming upon 
it for the first time, we all by common con- 
sent agreed that this state-room was the 
pleasantest and most facetious and capital 
contrivance possible ; and that to have had 
it one inch larger would have been quite a 
disagreeable and deplorable state of things. 
And with this ; and with showing how — 
by very nearly closing the door, and twin- 
ing in and out like serpents, and by count- 
ing the little washing-slab as standing-room 
— we could manage to insinuate four peo- 
ple into it, all at one time ; and entreating 
each other to observe how very airy it was 
(in dock), and how there was a beautiful 
port-hole which could be kept open all day 
"(weather permitting), and how there was 



quite a large bull's eye just over the looking- 
glass which would render shaving a perfectly 
easy and delightful process (when the ship 
did n't roll too much), we arrived, at last, at 
the unanimous conclusion that it was rather 
spacious than otherwise ; though I do verily 
believe that, deducting the two berths, one 
above the other, than which nothing smaller 
for sleeping in was ever made except cof- 
fins, it was no bigger than one of those 
hackney-cabriolets which have the door be- 
hind, and shoot their fares out, like sacks of 
coals, upon the pavement. 

Having settled this point to the perfect 
satisfaction of all parties concerned and un- 
concerned, we sat down round the fire in 
the ladies' cabin, — just to try the effect. 
It was rather dark certainly ; but somebody 
said, " Of course it would be light at sea," 
a proposition to which we all assented ; 
echoing, " Of course, of course," though it 
would be exceedingly difficult to say why 
we thought so. I remember, too, when we 
had discovered and exhausted another top- 
ic of consolation in the circumstance of this 
ladies' cabin adjoining our state-room, and 
the consequently immense feasibility of sit- 
ting there at all times and seasons, and had 
fallen into a momentary silence, leaning our 
faces on our hands and looking at the fire, 
one of our party said, with the solemn air 
of a man who had made a discovery, " What 
a relish mulled claret will have down here ! " 
which appeared to strike us all most forci- 
bly; as though there was something spicy 
and high-flavored in cabins, which essen- 
tially improved that composition, and ren- 
dered it quite incapable of perfection any- 
where else. 

There was a stewardess, too, actively en- 
gaged in producing clean sheets and table- 
cloths from the very entrails .of the sofi\s, 
and from unexpected lockers, of such art- 
ful mechanism that it made one's head ache 
to sec them opened one after another, and 
rendered it quite a distracting circumstance 
to follow her proceedings, and to find that 
every nook and corner and individual piece 
of furniture was something else besides what 
it pretended to be, and was a mere trap 
and deception and place of secret stowage, 
whose ostensible purpose was its least use- 
ful one. 

God bless that stewardess for her piously 
fraudulent account of January voyages ! 
God bless her for her clear recollection of 
the companion passage of last year, when 
nobody was ill, and everybody danced from 
morning to night, and it was " a run " of 
twelve days, and a piece of the purest frolic 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



and delight and jollity ! All happiness be 
with her for her bright face and her pleas- 
ant Scotch tongue, which had sounds of old 
Home in it for my fellow-traveller ; and 
for her predictions of fair winds and line 
weather (all wrong, or I should n't be half 
so fond of her) ; and for the ten thousand 
small fragments of genuine womanly tact 
by which, without piecing them elaborately 
together, and patching them up into shape 
and form and case and pointed application, 
she nevertheless did plainly show that all 
young mothers on one side of the Atlantic 
were near and close at hand to their little 
children left upon the other ; and that what 
seemed to the uninitiated a serious journey 
was, to those who were in the secret, a mere 
frolic, to be sung about and whistled at ! 
Light be her heart and gay her merry eyes 
for years ! 

The state-room had grown pretty fast ; 
but by this time it had expanded into some- 
thing quite bulky, and almost boasted a 
bay-window to view the sea from. So we 
went upon deck again in high spirits ; and 
there everything was in such a state of 
bustle and active preparation, that the blood 
quickened its pace, and whii-led through 
one's veins on that clear frosty morning 
with involuntary mirthfulness. For every 
gallant ship was riding slowly up and down, 
and every little boat was plashing noisily 
in the water; and knots of people stood 
upon the wharf, gazing with a kind of 
"dread dehght" on the far-famed fast 
American steamer ; and one party of men 
were " taking in the milk," or, in other 
words, getting the cow on board ; and an- 
other were filling the ice-houses to the very 
throat with fresh provisions, — with butch- 
ers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale sucking- 
pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and 
pork, and jioultry out of all proportion ; 
and others were coiling ropes, and busy 
with oakum yarns ; and others were lower- 
ing heavy packages into the hold ; and the 
purser's head was barely visible as It loomed 
in a state of exquisite perplexity from the 
midst of a vast pile of passengers' luggage ; 
and there seemed to be nothing going on 
anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of 
anybody, but preparations for this mighty 
voyage. This, with the bright cold sun, 
the bracing air, the crisply curling water, 
the thin white crust of morning ice upon 

t the decks, which crackled with a sharp and 
cheerful sound beneath the lightest tread, 
was irresistible. And when, again upon 
the shore, we turned and saw from the ves- 

I sel's mast her name signalled in flags of 



joyous colors, and fluttering by their side 
the beautiful American banner with its 
stars and stripes, the long three thousand 
miles and more, and, longer still, the six 
whole months of absence, so dwindled and 
faded, that the ship had gone out and come 
home again, and it was broad spring already 
in the Coburg Dock at Liverpool. 

I have not inquired among my medical 
acquaintance whether Turtle, and cold 
Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Clar- 
et, and all the slight et cetera usually in- 
cluded in an unlimited order for a good 
dinner, — especially when it is left to the 
liberal construction of my faultless friend, 
Mr. Radley of the AdelphI Hotel, — are 
peculiarly calculated to sulTer a sea-change ; 
or whether a plain mutton-chop, and a glass 
or two of sherry, would be less likely of 
conversion into foreign and disconcerting 
material. My own opinion is, that wdiether 
one is discreet or indiscreet in these par- 
ticulars, on the eve of a sea-voyage, is a 
matter of little consequence ; and that, to 
use a common phrase, " it comes to very 
much the same thing in the end." Be this 
as it may, I know that the dinner of that 
day was undeniably perfect; that it com- 
prehended all these items, and a great 
many more ; and that we all did ample 
justice to it. And I know too, that, bating 
a certain tacit avoidance of any allusion to 
to-morrow, such as may be supposed to 
prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys 
and a sensitive prisoner who is to be hanged 
next morning, we got on very well, and, all 
things considered, were merry enough. 

When the morning — the morning — 
came, and we met at breakfast. It was curi- 
ous to see how eager we all were to prevent 
a moment's pause In the conversation, and 
how astoundlngly gay everybody was, the 
forced spirits o^u^ch member of the little 
party having as much likeness to his natu- 
ral mirth as hot-house peas at five guineas 
the quart resemble in flavor the growth of 
the dews and air and rain of Heaven. But 
as one o'clock, the hour for going aboard, 
drew near, this volubility dwindled away 
by little and little, despite the most perse- 
vering efforts to the contrary, until at last, 
the matter being now quite desperate, we 
threw off all disguise ; openly speculated 
upon where we should be this time to-mor- 
row, this time next day, and so forth ; and 
Intrusted a vast number of messages to 
those who intended returning to town that 
night, whtch were to be delivered at home 
and elsewhere without fail, within the very 
shortest possible space of time after the ar- 



AMERICAN NOTES 



rival of the railway train at Euston Square. 
And commissions and remembrances do so 
crowd upon one at such a time, that we 
were still busied witli this employment 
when we found ourselves fused, as it were, 
into a dense conglomeration of passengers 
and passengers' friends and passengers' lug- 
gage, all jumbled together on the deck of a 
small steamboat, and panting and snorting 
off to the packet, which had worked out of 
dock yesterday afternoon, and was now 
lying at her moorings in the river. 

And there she is ! all eyes are turned to 
where she lies, dimly discernible through 
the gathering fog of the early winter after- 
noon ; every finger is pointed in the same 
direction ; and murmurs of interest and 
admiration, as, " How beautiful she looks ! " 
" How trim she is ! " are heard on every 
side. Even the lazy gentleman with his hat 
on one side and his hands in his pockets, 
who has dispensed so much consolation by 
inquiring with a yawn of another gentle- 
man whether he is "going across," — as if 
it were a ferry, — even he condescends to 
look that way, and nod his head, as who 
should say, " No mistake about that " ; and 
not even the sage Lord Burleigh in his nod 
included half so much as this lazy gentle- 
man of might who has made the passage 
(as everybody on board has found out al- 
ready, it 's impossible to say how) thirteen 
times without a single accident ! There is 
another passenger very much wrajiped up, 
who has been frowned down by the rest, 
and morally trampled upon and crushed, 
for presuming to inquire, with a timid in- 
terest, how long it is since the poor Presi- 
dent went down. He is standing close to 
the lazy gentleman, and says, with a faint 
smile, that he believes She is a very strong 
Ship ; to whieh the lazy gentleman, looking 
first in his questioner's- e^^pind then very 
hard in the wind's, answers unexpectedly 
and ominously, that She need be. Upon 
this the lazy gentleman instantly falls very 
low in the- popular estimation, and the 
passengers, with looks of defiance, whisper 
to each other that he is an ass, and an im- 
postor, and clearly don't know anything at 
all about it. 

But we are made fast alongside the 

Eacket, whose huge red funnel is smoking 
ravely, giving rich promise of serious in- 
tentions. Packing-cases, portmanteaus, car- 
pet-bags, and boxes are already passed 
from hand to hand, and hauled on board 
with breathless rapidity. T(nr uHteeWr 
smartly dressed, are at the gangway, hand- 
ing the passengei-3 up the side, and hurry- 



ing the men. In five minutes' time the 
little steamer is utterly deserted, and the 
packet is beset and overrun by its late 
freight, who instantly pervade the whole 
ship, and are to be met with by the dozen 
in every nook and corner; swarming down J 
below with their own baggage, and stum- I 
bling over other people's ; disposing them- ' 
selves comfortably in wrong cabins, and 
creating a most horrible confusion by hav- 
ing to turn out again ; madly bent upon 1 
opening locked doors, and on forcing a ' 
passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way I 
places where there is no thoroughfare ; | 
sending wild stewards with elfin hair to 
and fro upon the breezy decks on unintelli- 
gible errands, impossible of execution; and, 
in short, creating the most extraordinary 
and bewildering tumult. In the midst of 
all this, the lazy gentleman, who seems to 
have no luggage of any kind, — not so 
much as a friend even, — lounges up and 
down the hurricane-deck, coolly puffing a 
cigar; and, as this unconcerned demeanor 
again exalts him in the opinion of those 
who have leisure to observe his proceedings, 
every time he looks up at the masts, or 
down at the decks, or over the side, they 
look there too, as wondering whether he 
sees anything wrong anywhere, and hoping 
that, in case he should, he will have the 
goodness to mention it. 

AVhat have we here? The captain's 
boat ! and yonder the captain himself. 
Now, by all our hopes and wishes, the very 
man he ought to be ! A well-made, tight- 
built, dapper little fellow, with a ruddy 
face, which is a letter of invitation to shake 
him by both hands at once, and with a 
clear, blue, honest eye, that it does one 
good to see one's sparkling image in. " Ring 
the bell ! " " Ding, ding, ding ! " the very 
bell Is in a hurry. " Now for the shore, — 
who 's for the shore ? " — " These gentle- 
men, I am sorry to say." They are away, 
and never said good by. Ah ! now they 
wave it from the little boat. " Good by ! 
Good by ! " Three cheers from them ; 
three more from us ; three more from them ; 
and they are gone. 

To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again, 
a hundred times ! This v/aiting for the 
latest mail-bags is worse tlian all. If we 
could have gone off in the midst of that last 
burst, we should have started triumphant- 
ly ; but to lie here two hours and more in 
the damp fog, neither staying at home nor 
.gfiing abroad, is letting one gradually down 
into \he very depths of dulness and low spii'- 
its. A speck in the mist, at last ! That's 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



pomething. It is the boat we wait for ! 
That 's more to the purpose. The captain 
appears on the paddle-box with his speak- 
ing-trumpet ; the officers take their stations ; 
all hands are on the alert ; the flagging 
hopes of the passengers revive ; the cooks 
pause in their savory work, and look out 
with faces full of interest. The boat comes 
alongside ; the bags are dragged in any- 
how, and flung down for the moment any- 
where. Three cheers more ; and as the 
first one rings upon our ears, the vessel 
thi'obs like a strong giant that has just re- 
ceived the breath of life ; the two great 
wheels turn fiercely round for the first time ; 
and the noble ship, with wind and tide 
astern, breaks proudly through the lashed 
and foaminsf water. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE PASSAGE OUT. 



We all dined together that day, and a 
rather formidable party we Avere, — no 
fewer than eighty-six strong. The vessel 
being pretty deep in the water, with all her 
coals on board and so many passengers, 
and the weather being calm and quiet, 
there was but little motion ; so that, before 
the dinner was half over, even those pas- 
sengers who were most distrustful of them- 
selves plucked up amazingly ; and those 
who in the morning had returned to the 
universal question, " Are you a good sail- 
or ? " a very decided negative, now either 
parried the inquiry with the evasive reply, 
" O, I suppose I 'm no worse than anybody 
else " ; or, reckless of all moral obligations, 
answered boldly, " Yes " ; and with some 
irritation too, as though they would add, " I 
should like to know what you see in rne, 
sir, particularly, to justify suspicion!" 

Notwithstanding this high tone of cour- 
age and confidence, I could not but observe 
that very few remained long over their 
wine, and that everybody had an unusual 
love of the open air, and that the favorite 
and most coveted seats were invariably 
those nearest to the door. The tea-table, 
too, was by no means as well attended as 
the dinner-table ; and there was less whist- 
playing than might have been expected. 
Still, with the exception of one lady, who 
had retired with some precipitation at din- 
ner-time, immediately after being assisted 
to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg 
of mutton with very green capers, there 



were no invalids as yet ; and walking and 
smoking and drinking of brandy-and-water 
(but always in the open air) went on with 
unabated spirit, until eleven o'clock or 
thereabouts, when " turning in " — no sailor 
of seven hours' experience talks of going to 
bed — became the order of the night. The 
perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks 
gave place to a heavy silence, and the 
whole human freight was stowed away be- 
low, excepting a very few stragglers, like 
myself, who were probably, like me, afraid 
to go there. 

To one unaccustomed to such scenes this 
is a very striking time on shipboard. Af- 
terwards, and when its novelty had long 
worn off, it never ceased to have a peculiar 
interest and charm for me. The gloom 
through which the great black mass holds 
its direct and certain course ; the rushing 
water, plainly heard, but dimly seen ; the 
broad, white, glistening track that follows 
in the vessel's wake ; the men on the look- 
out forward, who would be scarcely visible 
against the dark sky, but for their blotting 
out some score of glistening stars ; the 
helmsman at the wheel, with the illuminat- 
ed card before him, shining, a speck of 
light amidst the darkness, like something 
sentient and of Divine intelligence ; the 
melancholy sighing of the wind through 
block, and rope, and chain ; the gleaming 
forth of light from every crevice, nook, and 
tiny piece of glass about the decks, as 
though the ship were filled with fire in hid- 
ing, ready to burst through any outlet, wild 
with its resistless power of death and ruin. 
At first, too, and even when the hour and 
all the objects it exalts have come to be 
familiar, it is difficult, alone and thoughtful, 
to hold them to their proper shapes and 
forms. They change with the wandering 
fancy, assume ^|^^semblance of things left 
far away, put on the well-remembered as- 
pect of favorite places dearly loved, and 
even people them with shadows. Streets, 
houses, rooms, figures so like their usual oc- 
cupants, that they have startled me by their 
reality, which far exceeded, as it seemed to 
me, all power of mine to conjure up the ab- 
sent, have many and many a time, at such 
an hour, grown suddenly out of objects with 
whose real look and use and purpose I was 
as well acquainted as with my own two hands. 

My own two hands, and feet likewise, 
being very cold, however, on this partic- 
ular occasion, I crept below at midnight. 
It was"n5t exactly comfortable below. It 
was decidedly close ; and it was impossible 
to be unconscious of the presence of that 



AMERICAN NOTES 



extraordinary compound of strange smells 
which is to be found nowhere but on board 
ship, and which is such a subtle perfume 
that it seems to enter at eveiy pore of 
the skin, and whisper of the hold. Two 
passengers' wives (one of them my own) 
lay already in silent agonies on the sofa ; 
and one lady's maid {my lady's) was a 
mere bundle on the iloor, execrating her 
destiny, and pounding her curl - papers 
among the stray boxes. Everything sloped 
the wrong way, which in itself was an 
aggravation scarcely to be borne. I had 
left the door ojjen, a moment before, in the 
bosom of a gentle declivity, and, when I 
turned to shut it, it was on the summit of a 
lofty eminence. Now every plank and tim- 
ber creaked, as if the ship were made of 
wicker-work ; and now crackled, like an 
enormous fire of the driest possible twigs. 
There was nothing for it but bed ; so I 
went to bed. 

It was pretty much the same for the next 
two days, with a tolerably fair wind and dry 
weather. I read in bed (but to this hour I 
don't know what) a good deal, and reeled 
on deck a little, drank cold brandy-and- 
water with an unspeakable disgust, and ate 
hard biscuit perseveringly ; not ill, but 
going to be. 

It is the third morning. I am awakened 
out of my sleep by a dismal shriek from my 
Avife, who demands to know whether there 's 
any danger. I rouse myself and look out 
of bed. The water-jug is plunging and 
leaping like a lively dolphin ; all the small- 
er articles are afloat, except my shoes, which 
are stranded on a carpet-bag high and dry, 
like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I 
see them spring into the air, and behold 
the looking-glass, which is nailed to the 
wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the 
same tune the door cntiii||||disappears and 
a new one is opened in tlie floor. Then I 
begin to comprehend that the state-room is 
standing on its head. 

Before it is possible to make any arrange- 
ment at all compatible with this novel state 
of thino;s, the ship riglits. Before one can 
say, " Thank Heaven ! " she wrongs again. 
Before one can cry she is wrong, she seems 
to have started forward, and to be a crea- 
ture actively running of its own accord, 
with broken knees and failing legs, through 
every variety of hole and pitfall, and stum- 
bling constantly. Before one can so much 
as wonder, she takes a high leap into the 
air. Before she has well done that, she 
takes a deep dive into the water. Before 
she has gained the surface, she throws a 



summerset. The instant she is on her legs 
she rushes backward. And so she goes on 
staggering, heaving, wrestling, leajiing, div- 
ing, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, 
and rocking, and going through all these 
movements, sometimes by turns, and some- 
times all together, until one feels disjiosed 
to roar for mercy. 

A steward passes. " Steward ! " " Sir ? " 
"What is the matter? what do you call 
this ? " " Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and 
a head-wind." 

A head-wind ! Imagine a human face 
upon the vessel's prow, with fifteen thou- 
sand Samsons in one bent upon driving her 
back, and hitting her exactly between the 
eyes whenever she attempts to advance an 
inch. Imagine the ship herself, with every 
pulse and artery of her huge body swollen 
and bursting under this maltreatment, sworn 
to go on or die. Imagine the wind howl- 
ing, the sea roaring, the rain beating, all in 
furious array against her. Picture the sky 
both dark and wild, and the clouds, in fear- 
ful sympathy with the waves, making an- 
other ocean in the air. Add to all this the 
clattering on deck and down below, the 
tread of hurried feet, the loud hoarse shouts 
of seamen, the gurgling in and out of water 
through the scuppers, with every now and 
then the striking of a heavy sea upon the 
planks above, with the deep, dead, heavy 
sound of thunder heard within a vault, — 
and there is the head-wind of that January 
morning. 

I say nothing of what may be called the 
domestic noises of the ship, such as the 
breaking of glass and crockery, the tum- 
bling down of stewards, the gambols over- 
head of loose casks and truant dozens of 
bottled porter, and the very remarkable 
and far from exhilarating sounds raised in 
their various state-rooms by the seventy 
passengers who were too ill to get up to 
breakfast, — I say nothing of them, for, 
although I lay listening to this concert for 
three or four days, I don't think I heard it 
for more than a quarter of a minute, at the 
expiration of which term I lay down again 
excessively sea-sick. 

Not sea-sick, be it understood, in the or- 
dinary acceptation of the term ; I wish I 
had been ; but in a form which I have 
never seen or heard described, though I 
have no doubt it is very common. I lay 
there all the day long quite coolly and con- 
tentedly, with no sense of weariness, with 
no desire to get up or get better or take 
the air, with no curiosity or care or regret 
of any soi't or degree, saving that I think I 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



can remember in this universal indifference 
having a kind of lazy joy, — of fiendish 
delight, if anything so lethargic can be dig- 
nified with the title, — in the fiict of my 
wife being too ill to talk to me. If I may 
be allowed to illustrate my state of mind by 
such an example, I should say that I was 
exactly in the condition of the elder Mr. 
AVillet after the incursion of the rioters into 
his bar at Chigwell. Nothing would have 
surprised me. If, in the momentary illu- 
mination of any ray of intelligence that 
may have come upon me in the way of 
thoughts of Home, a goblin postman with a 
scarlet coat and bell had come into that 
little kennel before me, broad awake in 
broad day, and, apologizing for being damp 
through Avalking in the sea, had handed me 
a letter directed to myself in familiar char- 
acters, I am certain I should not have felt 
one atom of astonishment ; I should have 
been perfectly satisfied. If Nejitune him- 
self had walked in with a toasted shark on 
his trident, I should have looked upon the 
event as one of the very commonest every- 
day occurrences. 

Once — once — I found myself on deck. 
I don't know how I got there, or what pos- 
sessed me to go there, but there I was ; and 
completely dressed too, with a huge pea-coat 
on, and a pan* of boots such as no weak man 
in his senses could ever have got into. I 
found myself standing, when a gleam of 
consciousness came upon me, holding on to 
something. I don't know what. I think it 
was the boatswain ; or it may have been 
the pump ; or possibly the cow. I can't say 
how long I had been there, — whether a 
day or a minute. I recollect trying to think 
about something (about anything in the 
whole wide world, I was not particular), 
without the smallest effect. I could not 
even make out which was the sea and which 
the sky ; for the horizon seemed drunk, and 
was flying wildly about in all directions. 
Even in that incapable state, however, I 
recognized the lazy gentleman standing be- 
fore me, nautically clad in a suit of shaggy 
blue, with an oilskin hat. But I was too 
imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to 
separate him from his dress, and tried to 
call him, I remember, Pilot. After another 
interval of total unconsciousness, I found he 
had gone, and recognized another figure in 
its place. It seemed to wave and fluctuate 
before me as though I saw it reflected in an 
unsteady looking-glass ; but I knew it for 
the captain ; and such was the cheerful in- 
fluence of his face, that I tried to smile; 
yes, even then I tried to smile. I saw by 



his gestures that he addressed me ; but it 
was a long time before I could make out 
that he remonstrated against my standing 
up to my knees in water, — as I was ; of 
course I don't know why. I tried to thank 
him, but could n't. I could only point to 
my boots, — or wherever I supposed my 
boots to be, — and say, in a plaintive voice, 
" Cork soles " ; at the same time endeav- 
oring, I am told, to sit down in the jiool. 
Finding that I was quite insensible, and for 
the time a maniac, he humanely conducted 
me below. 

There I remained until I got better ; suf- 
fering, whenever I was recommended to eat 
anything, an amount of anguish only second 
to that which is said to be endured by the 
apparently drowned in the process of res- 
toration to life. One gentleman on board 
had a letter of introduction to me fi-om a 
mutual friend in London. He sent it be- 
low with his card, on the morning of the 
head-wind ; and I was long troubled with 
the idea that he might be up and well, and 
a hundred times a day expecting me to call 
upon him in the saloon. I imagined him 
one of those cast-iron images — I Avill not 
call them men — who ask, with red faces and 
lusty voices, what sea-sickness means, and 
whether it really is as bad as it is represent- 
ed to be. This was very torturing indeed ; 
and I don't think I ever felt such perfect 
gratification and gratitude of heart as I did 
when I heard from the ship's doctor that he 
had been obliged to put a large mustard 
poultice on this very gentleman's stomach. 
I date my recovery from the receijit of that 
intelligence. 

It was materially assisted, though, I have 
no doubt, by a heavy gale of wind, which 
came slowly up at sunset, when we were 
about ten days out, and raged with gradu- 
ally increasing fury until morning, saving 
that it lulled for an hour a little before mid- 
night. There was something in the unnat- 
ural repose of that hour, and in the after 
gathering of the storm, so inconceivably aw- 
ful and tremendous, that its bursting into 
full violence was almost a relief. 
' The laboring of the ship in the troubled 
sea on this night I shall never forget. 
" Will it ever be worse than this ? " was a 
question I had often heard asked, when 
everything was sliding and bumping about, 
and when it certainly did seem difficult to 
comprehend the possibihty of anything afloat 
being more disturbed, without toppling over 
and going down. But what the agitation 
of a steam-vessel is, on a bad winter's night 
in the wild Atlantic, it is impossible for the 



AMERICAN NOTES 



most vivid imagination to conceive. To say- 
that she is Hung down on her side in the 
waves, with her masts dipping into them, and 
that, springing up again, she rolls over on 
the other side, until a heavy sea strikes her 
with the noise of a hundred great guns, and 
hurls her back, — that she stops, and stag- 
gers, and shivers, as though stunned, and 
then, with a violent throbbing at her heart, 
darts onward like a monster goaded into 
madness, to be beaten down, and battered, 
and crushed, and leaped on by the angry 
sea, — that thunder, lightning, hail, and 
rain, and wind, are all in fierce contention 
for the mastery, — that every plank has its 
groan, every nail its shriek, and every drop 
of water in the great ocean its howling 
voice, — Is nothing. To say that all Is 
grand, and all appalling and horrible in the 
last degree, is nothing. Words cannot ex- 
press it. Thoughts cannot convey it. Only 
a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, 
rage, and passion. 

And yet. In the very midst of these ter- 
rors, I was placed in a situation so exqui- 
sitely ridiculous, that even then I had as 
strong a sense of its absurdity as I have 
now; and could no more help laughing 
than I can at any other comical Incident, 
hajipenlng under circumstances the most 
favorable to its enjoyment. About mid- 
night we shipped a sea, wliich forced Its 
way through the skylights, burst open the 
doors above, and came raging and roaring 
down Into the ladles' cabin, to the unspeak- 
able consternation of my wife and a little 
Scotch lady, — who, by the way, had pre- 
viously sent a message to the captain by 
the stewardess, j-equesting him, with her 
compliments, to have a steel conductor im- 
mediately attached to the top of every mast, 
and to the chimney, in order that the ship 
might not be struck by lightning. They, 
and the handmaid before mentioned, being 
in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew 
what to do with them, I naturally bethought 
myself of some restorative or comfortable 
cordial ; and nothing better occurring to 
me, at the moment, than hot brandy-and- 
water, I procured a tumblerful without de- 
lay. It being impossible to stand or sit 
without holding on, they were all heaped 
together in one corner of a long sofa, — a 
fixture, extending entirely across the cabin, 
— where they clung to each other in mo- 
mentary expectation of being drowned. 
TVhen I approached this place with my 
specific, and was about to administer it, 
Avith many consolatory expressions, to the 
nearest sufferer, what was my dismay to sec 



them all roll slowly down to the other end ! 
And when I staggered to that end, and held 
out the glass once more, how immensely 
baffled were my good intentions by the ship 
giving another lurch, and their all rolling 
back again ! I suppose I dodged them up 
and down this sofii for at least a quarter of 
an hour, without reaching them once ; and 
by the time I did catch them, the bran- 
dy-and-water was diminished, by constant 
spilling, to a teaspoonful. To complete the 
group, It is necessary to recognize in this 
disconcerted dodger an individual very pale 
from sea-sickness, who had shaved his beard 
and brushed his hair last at Liverpool ; 
and whose only articles of dress (linen not 
included) wei-e a pair of dread naught trou- 
sers; a blue jacket, formerly admired upon 
the Thames at Richmond ; no stockings ; 
and one slipper. 

Of the outrageous antics performed by 
that ship next morning, which made bed a 
practical joke, and getting up, by any pro- 
cess short of fixUIng out, an impossibility, I 
say nothing. But anything like the utter 
dreariness and desolation that met my eyes 
when I hterally " tumbled up " on deck at 
noon I never saw. Ocean and sky were 
all of one dull, heavy, uniform lead-color. 
There was no extent of prosjiect even over 
the di-eary waste that lay around us, for the 
sea ran high, and the liorizon encompassed 
us like a large black hoop. Viewed from 
the air, or some tall bluff on shore. It Avould 
have been imposing and stupendous, no 
doubt ; but seen from the wet and rolling 
decks, it only impressed one giddily and 
painfully. In the gale of last night the life- 
boat had been crushed by one blow of the 
sea like a Avalnut-shell ; and there it hung 
dangling in the air, a mere fagot of crazy- 
boards. The planking of the paddle-boxes 
had been torn sheer aAvay, The wheels 
were exposed and bare ; and they whirled 
and dashed their spray about the decks at 
random. Chimney white with crusted salt ; 
topmast struck ; storm-sails set ; rigging all 
knotted, tangled, wet, and droo])ing; a 
gloomier picture it would be hard to look 
upon. 

I was now comfortably established by 
courtesy in the ladies' cabin, where, besides 
ourselves, there were only four other pas- 
sengers. First, the little Scotch lady be- 
fore mentioaed, on her way to join her hus- 
band at New York, who had settled there 
tlu'ee years before. Secondly- and thirdly, 
an honest young Yorkshireman, connected 
AvIth some American house ; domiciled in 
that same city, and carrying thither his 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



15 



beautiful young wife, to whom he had been 
married but a fortnight, and who was the 
fairest specimen of a comely English coun- 
try girl I have ever seen. Fourthly, fifthly, 
and lastly, another couple ; newly married 
too, if one might judge fi-om the endear- 
ments they frequently interchanged ; of 
whom I know no more than that they were 
rather a mysterious, runaway kind of 
couple ; that the lady had great personal 
attractions also ; and that the gentleman 
carried more guns with him than Robinson 
Crusoe, wore a shooting-coat, and had two 
great dogs on board. On further considera- 
tion, I remember that he tried hot roast 
pig and bottled ale as a cure for sea-sick- 
ness ; and that he took these remedies (usu- 
ally in bed) day after day, with astonishing 
perseverance. I may add, for the informa- 
tion of the curious, that they decidedly 
failed. 

The weather continuing obstinately and 
almost unprecedentedly bad, we usually 
straggled into this cabin, more or less faint 
and miserable, about an hour before noon, 
and lay doAvn on the sofas to recover ; dur- 
ing which interval the captain would look 
in to communicate the state of the wind, 
the moral certainty of its changing to-mor- 
row (the weather is always going to im- 
prove to-morrow, at sea), the vessel's rate 
of sailing, and so forth. Observations there 
wei-e none to tell us of, for there was no sun 
to take them by. But a description of one 
day will sei-ve for all the rest. Here it is. 

The captain being gone, we compose 
ourselves to read, if the place be light 
enough ; and if not, we doze and talk al- 
ternately. At one, a bell rings, and the 
stewardess comes down with a steaming 
dish of baked potatoes, and another of 
roasted apples ; and plates of pig's face, 
cold ham, salt laeef ; or perhaps a smoking 
mess of rare hot coUops. 'SYq fall to upon 
these dainties ; eat as much as we can (we 
have great appetites now), and are as long 
as jiossible about it. If the fire will burn 
(it ivill sometimes), we are pretty cheerful. 
If it won't, we all remark to each other 
that it 's very cold, rub our hands, cover 
ourselves with coats and cloaks, and lie 
down again to doze, talk, and read (pro- 
vided as aforesaid), until dinner-time. At 
five another bell rings, and the stcAvardess 
reappears with another dish of potatoes — 
boiled this time — and store of hot meat 
of various kinds, not forgetting the roast 
pig, to be taken medicinally. We sit down 
at table again (rather more cheerfidly than 
before) ; prolong the meal with a rather 



mouldy dessert of apples, grapes, and or- 
anges ; and drink our wine and brandy- 
and-water. The bottles and glasses are 
still upon the table, and the oranges and so 
forth are rolling about according to their 
fancy and the ship's way, when the doctor 
comes down, by special nightly invitation, 
to join our evening rubber ; immediately 
on whose arrival we make a party at whist, 
and as it is a rough night, and the cards 
Avill not lie on the cloth, we put the tricks 
in our pockets as we take them. At whist 
we remain with exemplary gravity (de- 
ducting a short time for tea and toast) until 
eleven o'clock, or thereabouts, when the 
captain comes down again, in a sou'wester 
hat tied under his chin, and a pilot-coat, 
making the ground wet where he stands. 
By this time the card-playing is over, and 
the bottles and glasses are again upon the 
table ; and after an hour's pleasant conver- 
sation about the ship, the passengers, and 
things In general, the captain (who never 
goes to bed, and is never out of humor) turns 
up his coat-collar for the deck again, shakes 
hands all round, and goes laughing out Into 
the weather as merrily as to a birthday 
party. 

As to daily news, there Is no dearth of 
that commodity. This passenger Is report- 
ed to have lost fourteen pounds at Vingt-et- 
un in the saloon yesterday; and that pas- 
senger drinks his bottle of champagne every 
day; and how he does It (being only a 
clerk), nobody knows. The head engineer 
has distinctly said that there never was such 
times, — meaning weather, — and four good 
hands are 111, and have given in, dead beat. 
Several berths are full of water, and all the 
cabins are leaky. The ship's cook, secretly 
swigging damaged whiskey, has been found 
drunk; and has been played upon by the 
fire-engine until quite sober. All the stew- 
ards have fallen down stairs at various din- 
ner-times, and go about with plasters In va- 
rious places. The baker Is ill, and so is the 
pastry-cook. A new man, horribly indis- 
posed, has been required to fill tlie place of 
the latter officer, and has been propped and 
jammed up with empty casks in a little 
house upon deck, and commanded to roll 
out pie-crusts, which he protests (Ijeing 
highly bilious) It is death to him to look at. 
News ! A dozen murders on shore would 
lack the Interest of these slight Incidents at 
sea. 

Divided between our rubber and such top- 
ics as these, we were running (as we thought) 
Into Halifax Harbor, on the fifteenth night, 
with little wind and a bright moon, — in- 



16 



AMERICAN NOTES 



deed, we had made the Light at its outer 
entrance, and put the pilot in charge, — 
when suddenly the ship struck upon a bank 
of mud. An innnediate rush on deck took 
place of course; the sides were crowded in 
an instant ; and for a few minutes we Avere 
in as lively a state of confusion as the great- 
est lover of disorder would desire to see. 
The passengers, and guns, and water-casks, 
and other heavy mattei'S, being all huddled 
together aft, however, to lighten her in the 
head, she was soon got off; and after some 
driving on towards an uncomfortable line of 
objects (whose vicinity had been announced 
very early in the disaster by a loud cry of 
" Breakei's ahead ! ") and much backing of 
paddles, and heaving of the lead into a 
constantly decreasing depth of water, we 
dropped anchor in a strange, outlandish- 
looking nook which nobody on board could 
recognize, although there was land all about 
us, and so close that we could plainly see the 
waving branches of the trees. 

It was strange enough, in the silence of 
midnight, and the dead stillness that seemed 
to be created by the sudden and unexpected 
stoppage of the engine which had been 
clanking and blasting in our ears incessant- 
ly for so many days, to watch the look of 
blank astonishment expressed in every face ; 
beginning with the officers, tracing it through 
all the j^assengers, and descending to the 
very stokers and furnace-men, who emerged 
from below, one by one, and clustered to- 
gether in a smoky group about the hatch- 
way of the engine-room, comparing notes in 
whispers. After throwing up a few rockets 
and firing signal-guns, in the hope of being 
hailed from the land, or at least of seeing a 
light, — but without any other sight or 
sound presenting itself, — it was determined 
to send a boat on shore. It was amusing to 
observe how very kind some of the passen- 
gers were, in volunteering to go ashore in 
this same boat; for the general good, of 
course ; not by any means because they 
thought the ship in an unsafe position, or 
contemplated the possibility of her heeling 
over in case the tide were running out. Nor 
was it less amusing to remark how desper- 
ately unpopular the poor pilot became in 
one short minute. He had had his passage 
out from Liverpool, and during the whole 
voyage had been quite a notorious charac- 
ter, as a teller of anecdotes and cracker of 
jokes. Yet here were the very men who had 
laughed the loudest at his jests now flourish- 
ing their fists in his fiice, loading him with 
imprecations, and defying him to his teeth 
as a villain ' 



The boat soon shoved off, with a lantern 
and sundry blue lights on board ; and in 
less than an hour returned ; the officer in 
command bringing with him a tcjlerably tall 
young tree, which he had plucked up by. 
the roots to satisfy certain distrustful pas- 
sengers whose minds misgave them that 
they were to be imposed \x\mn and ship- 
wrecked, and who would on no other terms 
believe that he had been ashore, or had 
done anything but fraudulently row a little 
way into the mist, specially to deceive them 
and compass their deaths. Our captain 
had foreseen from the first that we must be 
in a place called the Eastern Passage ; and 
so we were. It was about the last place in 
the world in which we had any business or 
reason to be ; but a sudden fog, and some 
error on the pilot's part, were the cause. 
We were surrounded by banks and rocks 
and shoals of all kinds, but had happily 
drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck 
that was to be found thereabouts. Eased 
by this rejiort, and by the assurance that 
the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at 
three o'clock in the morning. 

I was dressing about half past nine next 
day, when the noise above hurried me 
on deck. When I had left it overnight, 
it was dark, foggy, and damp, and there 
were bleak hills all round us. Now we 
were gliding down a smooth, broad stream, 
at the rate of eleven miles an hour, our 
colors flying gayly, our crew rigged out 
in their smartest clothes, our officers 
in uniform again ; the sun shining as on 
a brilliant April day in England ; the 
land stretched out on either side, streaked 
with light patches of snow ; white wooden 
houses, peojjle at their doors, telegraphs 
working, flags hoisted, wharves appearing, 
ships, quays crowded with people, distant 
noises, shouts, men and boys running down 
steep places towards the pier ; — all more 
bright and gay and fresh to our unused 
eyes than words can paint them. We came 
to a wharf leaved with uplifted faces ; got 
alongside, and were made fiist, after some 
shouting and straining of cables ; darted, a 
score of us, along the gangway, almost as 
soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and 
before it had reached the ship, — and 
leaped upon the firm glad earth again ! 

I suppose this Halifax would have ap- 
peared an Elysium, though it had been a 
curiosity of ugly dulness. But I carried 
away with me a most pleasant impression 
of the town and its inhabitants, and have 
preserved it to this hour. Nor was it with- 
out regret that I came home without hav- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



17 



ing found an opportunity of returning thith- 
er, and once more shaking hands with the 
friends I made that day. 

It happened to be the opening of the 
Legislative Council and General Assembly, 
at which ceremonial the forms observed on 
the commencement of a new session of Par- 
liament in England were so closely copied, 
and so gravely presented on a small scale, 
that it was like looking at Westminster 
through the wrong end of a telescope. The 
governor, as her Majesty's representative, 
delivered what may be called the Speech 
from the Throne. He said what he had to 
say manfully and well. The military band 
outside the building struck up " God save 
the Queen," with great vigor, before his 
Excellency had quite finished ; the people 
shouted, the ins rubbed their hands, the 
outs shook their heads, the government par- 
ty said there never was such a good speech ; 
the opposition declared there never was 
such a bad one ; the Speaker and members 
of the House of Assembly withdrew from 
the bar to say a great deal among them- 
selves, and do a little ; and, in short, every- 
thing went on, and pi-omised to go on, just 
as it does at home upon the like occasions. 

The town is built on the side of a hill, 
the highest point being commanded by a 
strong fortress not yet quite finished. Sev- 
eral streets of good breadth and appear- 
ance extend from its summit to the water- 
side, and are intersected by cross-streets 
running parallel with the river. The 
houses are chiefly of wood. The market is 
abundantly supplied, and provisions are 
exceedingly cheap. The weather being 
unusually mild at that time for the season 
of the year, there was no sleighing, but 
there were plenty of those vehicles in yards 
and by-places ; and some of them, from the 
gorgeous quality of their decorations, might 
have " gone on " without alteration as tri- 
umphal cars in a melodrama at Astley's. 
The day was uncommonl}^ fine, the air bra- 
cing and healthful, the whole aspect of the 
town cheerful, thriving, and industrious. 

We lay there seven hours, to deliver and 
exchange the mails. At length, having 
collected all our bags and all our pas- 
sengers (including two or three choice 
spirits, who, having indulged too freely in 
oysters and champagne, were found lying 
insensible on their backs in unfrequent- 
ed streets), the engines were again put in 
motion, and we stood off for Boston. 

Encountering squally weather again in 
the Bay of Fundy, we tumbled and rolled 
about as usual all that night and all next 
2 



day. On the next afternoon, that is to say, 
on Saturday, the twenty-second of January, 
an American pilot-boat came alongside, 
and soon afterwards the Britannia steam- 
packet from Liverpool, eighteen days out, 
was telegraphed at Boston. 

The indescribable interest with which I 
strained my eyes as the first patches of 
American soil peeped hke molehills from 
the green sea, and followed them, as they 
swelled, by slow and almost imperceptible 
degrees, into a continuous line of coast, can 
hardly be exaggerated. A sharp keen wind 
blew dead against us ; a hard fi-ost prevailed 
on shoi-e ; and the cold was most severe. 
Yet the air was so intensely clear and dry 
and bright, that the temperature was not 
only end^urable, but delicious. 

How I remained on deck, staring about 
me, until we came alongside the dock, and 
how, though I had had as many eyes as 
Argus, I should have had them all wide 
open, and all employed on new objects, 
are topics which I will not prolong this 
chapter to discuss. Neither will I more 
than hint at my foreigner-like mistake, in 
sujiposing that a party of most active per- 
sons, who scrambled on board at the peril 
of their lives as we approached the wharf, 
were newsmen, answering to that industri- 
ous class at home ; whereas, despite the 
leathern wallets of news slung about the 
necks of some, and the broad sheets in the 
hands of all, they were Editors, who board- 
ed ships in pei-son (as one gentleman in a 
worsted comforter informed me), " Because 
they liked the excitement of it." Suffice it 
in this place to say, that one of these in- 
vaders, with a ready courtesy for which I 
thank him here most gratefully, went on 
before to order rooms at the hotel ; and 
that, when I followed, as I soon did, I found 
myself rolling through the long passages 
with an involuntary imitation of the gait of 
Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical melo- 
drama. 

" Dinner, if you please," said I to the 
waiter. 

" When ? " said the waiter. 

" As quick as possible," said L 

" Right away V " said the waiter. 

After a moment's hesitation, I answered, 
" No," at hazard. 

" Not right away ? " cried the waiter, 
with an amount of surprise that made mc 
start. 

I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, 
" No ; I would rather have it in this private 
room. I like it very much." 

At this, I really thought the waiter must 



AMERICAN NOTES 



have gone out of his mind ; as I believe he 
■would have done, but for the interposition 
of another man, who whispered in his ear, 
"Direclly." 

" Well ! and that 's a fact ! " said the 
waiter, looking helplessly at me : " Right 
away." 

I saw now that " Right away " and 
" Directly " were one and the same thing. 
So I reversed my previous answer, and sat 
down to dinner in ten minutes afterwards ; 
and a capital dinner it was. 

The hotel (a very excellent one) is 
called tlie Tremont Ilouse. It has more 
galleries!, colonnades, piazzas, and passages 
than I can remember or the reader would 
believe. 



CHAPTER m. 



In all the public establishments of Amer- 
ica the utmost courtesy prevails. Most of 
our departments are susceptible of consid- 
erable improvement in this respect, but the 
custom-house above all others would do 
well to take example from the United 
States, and render itself somewhat less 
odious and offensive to foreigners. The 
servile rapacity of the Fi-ench olficials is 
sufficiently contemptible; but there is a 
sm-ly, boorish incivility about our men, alike 
disgusting to all persons who fall into their 
hands, and discreditable to the nation that 
keeps such ill-conditioned curs snarling 
about its gates. 

When i landed in America, I could not 
help being strongly impressed with the con- 
trast their custom-house presented, and the 
attention, politeness, and good-humor with 
which its officers discharged their duty. 

As we did not land at Boston, in conse- 
quence of some detention at the wharf, un- 
til after dark, I received my first impressions 
of the city in walking down to the Custom- 
House on the morning after our arrival, 
which was Sunday. I am afraid to say, by 
the way, how many offers of pews and seats 
in church for that morning were made to 
us, by formal note of invitation, before we 
had half finished our first dinner in Amer- 
ica ; but if I may be allowed to make a 
moderate guess, without going into nicer 
calculation, I should say that at least as 
many sittings were proffered us as would 
have accommodated a score or two of 
grown-up families. The number of creeds 
and forms of religion to which the pleasure 



of our company was requested was in very 
fair proportion. 

Not being able, in the absence of any 
change of clothes, to go to church that day, 
we were compelled to decline these kind- 
nesses, one and all ; and I was reluctantly 
obliged to forego the delight of hearing Dr. 
Channing, who happened to preach that 
morning for the first time in a very long 
interval. I mention the name of this dis- 
tinguished and accomplished man (with 
whom I soon afterwards had the pleasure 
of becoming personally acquainted), that I 
may have the gratification of recording my 
humble tribute of admiration and respect 
for his high abilities and character, and for 
the bold pliilanthropy with which he has 
ever opposed himself to that most hideous 

^?t and foul disgrace, — Slavery. 
To return to Boston. When I got into 
c streets upon this Sunday morning, the 
air was so clear, the houses were so bright 
and gay, the sign-boards were painted in 
such gaudy colors, the gilded letters were 
so very golden, the bricks were so Aery red, 
the stone was so very white, the blinds and 
area railings were so very green, the knobs 
and plates upon the street doors so marvel- 
lously bright and twinkling, and all so 
slight and unsubstantial in appearance, that 
every thoroughfare in the city looked ex- 
actly like a scene in a pantomime. It rare- 
ly happens in the business streets that a 
tradesman — if I may venture to call any- 
body a tradesman where everybody is a 
merchant — resides above his store ; so that 
many occupations are often carried on in 
one house, and the whole front is covered 
with boards and inscriptions. As I walked 
along, I kept glancing up at these boards, 
confidently expecting to see a few of them 
change into something ; and I never turned 
a corner suddenly without looking out for 
the clown and pantaloon, who, I had no 
doubt, were hiding in a doorway or behiml 
some pillar close at hand. As to Harlequin 
and Columbine, I discovered immediately 
that they lodged (they are always looking- 
after lodgings in a pantomime) at a very 
small clock-maker's, one story high, near 
the hotel ; which, in addition to various 
symbols and devices, almost covering the 
whole front, had a great dial hanging out, 
— to be jumped through, of course. 

The suburbs are, if possible, even more 
unsubstantial-looking than the city. The 
white wooden houses (so white that it 
makes one wink to look at them), with 
their green jalousie blinds, are so sprinkled 
and dropped about in all directions, with- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



19 



out seeming to have any root at all in the 
ground, and the small churches and chapels 
are so prim, and bright, and highly var- 
nished, that I almost believed the whole 
affair coukl be taken up piecemeal like a 
child's toy, and crammed into a little box. 

The city is a beautiful one, and cannot 
fail, I should imagine, to impress all stran- 
gers very favorably. The j^rivate dwelling- 
houses are, for the most part, lai-ge and ele- 
gant ; the shops extremely good ; and the 
public buildings handsome. The State House 
is built upon the summit of a hill which rises 
gradually at first, and afterwards by a steep 
ascent, almost from the water's edge. In 
front is a green enclosure, called the Com- 
mon. The site is beautiful ; and from the top 
there is a charming panoramic view of the 
whole town and neighborhooLly In addition 
to a variety of commodious offices, it contains 
two handsome chambers ; in one, the House 
of Representatives of the State hold their 
meetings ; in the other, the Senate. Such 
proceedings as I saw here Avere conducted 
with perfect gravity and decorum, and were 
certainly calculated to inspire attention and 
respect. 

There is no doubt that much of the intel- 
lectual refinement and superiority of Boston 
is referable to the quiet influence of the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, which is within three 
or four miles of the city. The resident pro- 
fessors at that University are gentlemen of 
learning and varied attainments ; and are, 
without one exception that I can call to mind, 
men who would shed a grace upon, and do 
honor to, any society in the civilized world. 
Many of the resident gentry in Boston and 
Its neighborhood, and I think I am not mis- 
taken in adding, a large majority of those 
who are attached to the liberal professions 
there, have been educated at this same 
sciiool. Whatever the defects of American 
universities may be, they disseminate no 
prejudices ; rear no bigots ; dig up the buried 
ashes of no old superstitions ; never interpose 
between the people and their improvement ; 
exclude no man l)ecause of his religious opin- 
ions ; above all, in their whole course of study 
and instruction, recognize a world, and a 
broad one, too, lying beyond the college walls. 

It was a source of inexpressible pleasure 
to me to observe the almost Imperceptible, 
but not less certain effect, wrought by this 
institution among the small community of 
Boston ; and to note at every turn the hu- 
manizing tastes and desires it has engen- 
dered ; the affectionate friendships to which 
It has given rise ; the amount of vanity and 
prejudice it has dispelled. The golden calf 



they worship at Boston Is a py^my compared 
with the gumt effigies set up in other parts 
of that vast counting-house which lies beyond 
the Atlantic ; and the almighty dollar sinks 
into something comparatively insignificant 
amidst a whole Pantheon of better gods. 

Above all, I sincerely believe that the pub- 
lic institutions and charities of this capital 
of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect as the 
most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and 
humanity can make them. I never in my 
life was more affected by the contemplation 
of happiness, under circumstances of priva- 
tion and bereavement, than In my visits to 
these establishments. 

It is a great and pleasant feature of all 
such institutions in America, that they are 
either supported by the State or assisted by 
the State ; or (in the event of their not need- 
ing its heljilng hand) that they act In concert 
with it, and are emphatically the people's. 
I cannot but think, witli a view to the prin- 
ciple and Its tendency to elevate or depress 
the character of the industrious classes, that 
a Public Charity is immeasurably better than 
a Private Foundation, no matter how mu- 
nificently the latter may be endowed. In 
our own country, where it has not, until with- 
in these later days, been a very popular fash- 
ion with governments to display any extraor- 
dinary regard for the great mass of the 
people, or to recognize their existence as im- 
l)rovable creatures, private charities, unex- 
ampled in the history of the earth, have 
arisen to do an incalculable amount of good 
among the destitute and afflicted. But the 
government of the country, having neither 
act nor part in them, is not in tlie receipt of 
any portion of the gi-atitude they inspire, 
and, offering very little shelter or relief be- 
}-ond that which is to be found in the work- 
house and the jail, has come, not unnaturally, 
to be looked upon by the poor rather as a 
stern master, quick to correct and punish, 
than a kind protector, merciful and vigilant 
in their hour of need. 

The maxim, that out of evil cometh good, 
is strongly Illustrated by these establishments 
at home, as the records of the Prerogative 
Office in Doctors' Commons can abundantly 
prove. Some immensely rich old gentleman 
or lady, surrounded by needy relatives, 
makes, upon a low average, a will a week. 
The old gentleman or lady, never very re- 
markable in the best of times for good tem- 
per, is full of aches and pains from head 
to foot, full of fancies and caprices, full 
of spleen, distrust, suspicion, and dislike. 
To cancel old wills, and Invent new ones, 
Is at last the sole business of such a testa- 



AMERICAN NOTES 



tor's existence ; and relations and friends 
(some of -whom have been bred up dis- 
tinctly to inherit a large shai-e of the 
property, and have been, from thoir cradles, 
specially disqualified from devoting them- 
selves to any useful pursuit, on that account) 
are so often and so unexpectedly and sum- 
marily cut oil", and reinstated, and cut off 
again, that the whole family, down to the 
remotest cousin, is kept in a perpetual fever. 
At length it becomes plain that the old la- 
dy or gentleman has not long to live ; and 
the plainer this becomes, the more clearly 
the old lady or gentleman perceives that 
everybody is in a conspiracy a&ainst their 
poor old dying relative ; wheretore the old 
lady or gentleman makes another last will, — 
positively the last this time, — conceals the 
same in a china teapot, and expires next 
day. Then it turns out that the whole of 
the real and personal estate is divided be- 
tween half a dozen charities, and that the 
dead-and-gone testator has in pure spite 
helped to do a great deal of good at the 
cost of an immense amount of evil passion 
and misery. 

The Perkins Institution and Massachu- 
setts Asylum for the Blind, at Boston, is su- 
perintended by a body of trustees who make 
an annual report to the corporation. The 
indigent blind of that State are admitted 
gratuitously. Those from the adjoining State 
of Connecticut, or from the States of Maine, 
Vermont, or New Hampshire, are admitted 
by a warrant from the State to which they 
respectively belong ; or, failing that, must 
find security among their friends for the pay- 
ment of about twenty pounds English for 
their first year's board and instruction, and 
ten for the second. " After the first year," 
say the trustees, " an account current will 
be opened with each pupil ; he_ will be 
charged with the actual cost of his board, 
which will not exceed two dollars per week," 
— a trifle more than eight shillings Eng- 
lish ; " and he will be credited with the 
amount paid for him by the State, or by his 
friends, also with his earnings over and above 
the cost of the stock which he uses ; so that 
all his earnings over one dollar per week 
will be his own. By the third year it will 
be known whether his earnings will more 
than pay the actual cost of his board ; if 
they should, he will have it at his option to 
remain and receive his earnings or not. 
Those who prove unable to earn their own 
livelihood will not be retained, as it is not 
desirable to convert the establishment into 
an almshouse, or to retain any but work- 
ing bees in the hive. Those who by phys- 



ical or mental imbecility are disqualified for 
work are thereby disqualified from being 
members of an industrious connnunity ; and 
they can be better provided for in establish- 
ments fitted for the infirm." 

I went to see this place one very fine win- 
ter morning, an Italian sky above, and the 
air so clear and bright on every side, that 
even my eyes, which are none of the best, 
could follow the minute lines and scraps of 
tracery in distant buildings. Like most 
other public institutions in America, of the 
same class, it stands a mile or two without 
the town, in a cheerful, healthy spot, and is 
an airy, spacious, handsome edifice. It is 
built upon a height commanding the harbor. 
When I paused for a moment at the door, 
and marked how fresh and free the whole 
scene was, — what sparkling bubbles glanced 
upon the waves, and welled up every mo- 
ment to the surface, as though the world be- 
low, like that above, were radiant with the 
bright day, and gushing over in its fulness 
of light ; when I gazed from sail to sail away 
upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining 
Avhite, the only cloud upon the still, deep, 
distant blue, — and, turning, saw a blind boy 
with his sightless face addressed that way, 
as though he too had some sense within him 
of the glorious distance, I felt a kind of sor- 
row that the place should be so very light, 
and a strange wish that for his sake it were 
darker. It was but momentary, of course, 
and a mere fancy, but I felt it keenly for 
all that. 

The childi-en were at their daily tasks in 
different rooms, except a few who were al- 
ready dismissed, and were at play. Here, 
as in many institutions, no uniform is worn ; 
and I was very glad of it for two reasons. 
Firstly, because I am sure that nothing but 
senseless custom and want of thought would 
reconcile us to the liveries and badges we are 
so fond of at home. Secondly, because the 
absence of these things presents each child to 
the visitor in his or her own proper character, 
with its individuality unimpaired ; not lost 
in a dull, ugly, monotonous repetition of the 
same unmeaning garb, which is really an 
important consideration. The wisdom of 
encouraging a little harmless pride in per- 
sonal appearance even among the blind, or 
the whimsical absurdity of considering char- 
ity and leather breeches inseparable com- 
panions, as we do, requires no comment. 

Good order, cloanlkiess, and comfort per- 
vaded every corner of the building. The 
various classes, Avho were gathered round 
their teachers, answered the questions put 
to them with readiness and inteHigence, and 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



In a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence 
which pleased me very much. Those who 
were at play were gleesome and noisy as 
other children. More spiritual and affec- 
tionate friendships appeared to exist among 
them than would be found among other 
young persons suffering under no depriva- 
tion ; but this I expected and was prepared 
to find. It is a part of the great scheme of 
Heaven's merciful consideration for the af- 
flicted. 

In a portion of the building set apart for 
that purpose are workshops tor blind per- 
sons whose education is finished, and who 
have acquired a trade, but who cannot pur- 
sue it in an ordinary manufactory, because 
of their deprivation. Several people were 
at work here, making brushes, mattresses, 
and so forth ; and the cheerfulness, indus- 
try, and good order discernible in every 
other part of the building extended to this 
department also. 

On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all 
repaired, without any guide or leader, to a 
spacious music-hall, where they took their 
seats in an orchestra erected for that pur- 
pose, and listened with manifest delight to 
a voluntary on the organ, played by one of 
themselves. At its conclusion, the jierform- 
er, a boy of nineteen or twenty, gave place 
to a girl ; and to her accompaniment they 
all sang a hymn, and afterwards a sort of 
chorus. It was very sad to look upon and 
hear them, happy though their condition un- 
questionably was; and I saw that one blind 
girl, who (being for the time deprived of 
the use of her limbs by illness) sat close be- 
side me with her face towards them, wept 
silently the while she hstened. 

It is strange to watch the faces of the 
blind, and see how fi-ee they are from all 
concealment of what is passing in their 
thoughts ; observing which, a man with eyes 
may blush to contemplate the mask he 
wears. Allowing for one shade of anxious 
ex2)ression which is never absent from their 
countenances, and the like of which we may 
readily detect in our own faces if we try to 
feel our way in the dark, every idea, as it 
rises within them, is expressed with the 
lightning's speed and nature's truth. If the 
company at a I'out, or drawing-room at 
court, could only for one time be as uncon- 
scious of the eyes upon them as blind men 
and women are, what secrets would come 
out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this 
siglit, the loss of which we so much pity, 
would appear to be ! 

The thought occurred to me as I sat down 
in another room before a girl, blind, deaf, 



and dumb, destitute of smell, and nearly so 
of taste, — before a fair young creature with 
every human faculty and hope and power 
of goodness and affection enclosed within 
her delicate frame, and but one outward 
sense, — the sense of touch. There she was 
before me ; built up, as it were, in a marble 
cell, impervious to any ray of light or par- 
ticle of sound ; with her poor white hand 
peeping through a chink in the wall, beck- 
oning to some good man for helj), that an 
immortal soul might be awakened. 

Long before I looked upon her, the help 
had come. Her face was radiant with intel- 
ligence and pleasure. Her hair, braided by 
her own hands, was bound about a head whose 
intellectual capacity and development were 
beautifully expressed in its graceful outline 
and its broad open brow ; her dress, ar- 
ranged by herself, was a pattern of neat- 
ness and simplicity ; the work she had knit- 
ted lay beside her; her wi'iting-book was 
on the desk she leaned upon. From the 
mournful ruin of such bereavement there 
had slowly risen up this gentle, tender, 
guileless, grateful-hearted being. 

Like other inmates of that house, she 
had a green i-ibbon bound round her eyelids. 
A doll she had dressed lay near upon the 
ground. I took it up, and saw that she 
had made a green fillet such as she wore 
herself, and fastened it about its mimic 
eyes. 

She was seated in a little enclosure made 
by school-desks and forms, writing her daily 
journal. But soon finishing this pursuit, 
she engaged in an animated communication 
with a teacher who sat beside her. This 
was a favorite mistress with the poor pupil. 
If she could see the face of her flxir instruc- 
tress, she would not love her less, I am sure. 

I have extracted a few disjointed frag- 
ments of her history from an account writ- 
ten by that one man who has made her 
what she is. It is a very beautiful and 
touching narrative ; and I wish I could 
present it entire. 

Her name is Laura Bridgman. " She 
was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on 
the 21st of December, 1829. She is de- 
scribed as having been a very sprightly and 
pretty infant, with bright blue eyes. She 
was, however, so puny and feeble until she 
was a year and a half old, that her parents 
hardly hoped to rear her. She was subject 
to severe fits, which seemed to rack her 
frame almost beyond her power of endur- 
ance, and life was held by the feeblest ten- 
ure ; but when a year and a half old, she 
seemed to rally; the dangerous symptoms 



AMERICAN NOTES 



subsided ; and at twenty months old, she 
was perfectly well. 

" Then her mental powers, hitherto stint- 
ed in their growth, rapidly developed tliem- 
sclves ; and during the four months of 
health wliich she enjoyed, she appears 
(making (hie allowance lor a fond mother's 
account^ to have displayed a considerable 
degree of intelligence. 

" But suddenly she sickened again ; her 
disease raged Avith great violence during 
five weeks, when her eyes and ears were 
inflamed, suppurated, and their contents 
were discharged. But though sight and 
hearing were gone forever, the poor child's 
sufferings were not ended. The fever 
raged during seven weeks ; for five months 
she was kept in bed in a darkened room ; 
it was a year before she could walk unsup- 
ported, and two years before she could sit 
up all day. It was now observed that her 
sense of smell was almost entirely destroyed; 
and consequently that her taste was much 
blunted. 

" It was not until four years of age that 
the poor child's bodily health seemed re- 
stored, and she was able to enter upon her 
apprenticesliip of life and the world. 

" But what a situation was hers ! The 
darkness and the silence of the tomb were 
around her ; no mother's smile called forth 
her answering smile, no father's voice 
taught her to imitate his sounds ; — they, 
brothers and sisters, were but forms of mat- 
ter which resisted her touch, but which dif- 
fered not from the furniture of the house, 
save in warmth, and in the power of loco- 
motion ; and not even in these respects 
from the dog and the cat. 

" But the immortal spirit which had been 
implanted within her could not die, nor be 
maimed nor mutilated ; and, though most 
of its avenues of communication with the 
world were cut off, it began to manifest it- 
self through the others. As soon as she 
could walk, she began to explore the room, 
and then the house ; she became flxmiliar 
with the form, density, weight, and heat of 
every article she could lay her hands upon. 
She followed her mother, and felt her hands 
and arms, as she was occupied about the 
house ; and her disposition to imitate led 
her to repeat everything herself. She even 
learned to sew a little, and to knit." 

The reader will scarcely need to be told, 
however, tliat the opportunities of communi- 
cating wnth her were very, very limited ; 
and that the moral effects of her wretched 
state soon began to appear. Those who 
cannot be enlightened by reason can only 



be controlled by force ; and this, coupled 
with her great privations, must soon have 
reduced her to a worse condition than that 
of the beasts that perish, but for timely and j 
unhoped-for aid. • | 

" At this time I was so fortunate as to 4 
hear of the child, and immediately hastened 1 
to Hanover to see her. I found "her with a 1 
well-formed figure ; a strongly marked, 
nervous-sanguine temperament ; a large and 
beautifully shaped head ; and the whole 
system in healthy action. The parents 
were easily induced to consent to her com- 
ing to Boston ; and on the 4th of October, | 
1837, they brought her to the Institution. 

" For a Avhile she was much l)cwildercd ; 
and after waiting about two weeks, until 
she became acquainted with her new locali- 
ty, and somewhat famihar with the inmates, 
the attempt was made to give lier knowl- 
edge of arbitrary signs, by which she could 
interchange thoughts with others. 

" There was one of two ways to be adopt- 
ed, — either to go on to build up a language 
of signs on the basis of the natural language 
which she had already commenced herself, 
or to teach her the purely arbitrary lan- 
guage in common use : that is, to give her 
a sign for every individual thing, or to give 
her a knowledge of letters by combination 
of which she might express her idea of the 
existence, and the mode and condition of 
existence, of anything. The former would 
have been easy, but very ineffectual; the 
latter seemed very difficult, but, if accom- 
plished, very effectual. I determined, there- 
fore, to try the latter. 

" The first experiments were made by 
taking articles in common use, such as 
knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting 
upon them labels with their names printed 
in raised letters. These she felt very care- 
fully, and soon, of course, distinguished that 
the crooked lines sjy n differed as much 
from the crooked lines k e y, as the sjooon 
differed from the key in form. 

" Then small detached labels, with the 
same words printed upon them, were put 
into her hands ; and she soon observed that 
they were similar to the ones pasted on tlie 
articles. She showed her perception of this 
similarity by laj'mg the label k e y upon tlie 
key, and the label spoon upon the spoon. 
She was encouraged here by the natural 
sign of approbation, — patting on the head. 

" The same process was then repeated 
with all the articles which she could handle ; 
and she very easily learned to place the 
proper labels upon them. It was evident, 
however, that the only intellectual exercise 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



23 



was that of imitation and memory. She 
recollected that the label hook was placed 
upon a book, and she repeated the process 
fii-st from imitation, next from memory, with 
only the motive of love of approbation, but 
apparently without the intellectual percep- 
tion of any relation between the things. 

" After a while, instead of labels, the in- 
dividual letters were given to her on de- 
tached bits of paper. They were arranged 
side by side so as to spell boo h, k e y, &c. ; 
then they were mixed up in a heap, and a 
sign was made for her to arrange them her- 
self, so as to express the words book, k e y, 
&c. ; and she did so. 

" Hitherto the process had been mechani- 
cal, and the success about as great as teach- 
ing a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. 
The poor child had sat in mute amazement, 
and patiently imitated everything her teach- 
er dill ; but now the truth began to flash 
upon her ; her intellect began to work ; she 
perceived that here was a way by which 
she could herself make up a sign of any- 
thing that was in her own mind, and show 
it to another mind ; and at once her coun- 
tenance lighted up with a human expres- 
sion. It was no longer a dog, or parrot : it 
was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon 
a new link of union with other spirits ! I 
could almost fix uj^on the moment when 
this truth dawned upon her mind, and 
spread its light to her countenance ; I saw 
that the great obstacle was overcome ; and 
that henceforward nothing but patient and 
persevering, but plain and straightforward, 
efforts were to be used. 

" The result, thus far, is quickly related, 
and easily conceived; but not so was the 
process ; for many weeks of apparently un- 
profitable labor were passed before it was 
effected. 

"When it was said, above, that a sign 
was made, it was intended to say that the 
action was performed by her teacher, she 
feeling his hands, and then imitating the 
motion. 

" The next step was to procure a set of 
metal types, with the different letters of the 
alphabet cast upon their ends ; also a board, 
in which were square holes, into which holes 
she could set the types so that the letters on 
their ends could alone be left above the 
surfixce. 

" Then, on any article being handed to 
her, — for instance, a pencil or a watch, — 
she would select the component letters, and 
arrange them on her board, and read them 
with apparent pleasure. 

" She was exercised for several weeks in 



this way, until her vocabulary became ex- 
tensive ; and then the important step was 
taken of teaching her how to represent the 
different letters by the position of her fin- 
gers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of 
the board and types. She accomplished 
this speedily and easily ; for her intellect 
had begun to work in aid of her teacher, 
and her jirogress was rapid. 

" This was the period, about three months 
after she had commenced, that the first re- 
port of her case was made, in which it is 
stated that ' she has just learned the manual 
alphabet, as used by the deaf-mutes, and it 
is a suliject of delight and wonder to see 
how rapidly, correctly, and eagerly she goes 
on with her labors. Her teacher gives her a 
new object, — for instance, a pencil, — first 
lets her examine it, and get an idea of its 
use, then teaches her how to spell it by 
making the signs for the letters with her 
own fingers ; the child grasps her hand, and 
feels her fingers, as the different letters are 
formed ; she turns her head a little on one 
side, like a person listening closely ; her lips 
are apart ; she seems scarcely to breathe ; 
and her countenance, at first anxious, grad- 
ually changes to a smile, as she comprehends 
the lesson. She then holds up her tiny fin- 
gers, and spells the word in the manual al- 
phabet ; next, she takes her types and ar- 
ranges her letters ; and last, to make sure 
that she is right, she takes the whole of the 
types composing the word, and places them 
upon or in contact with the pencil, or what- 
ever the object may be.' 

" The whole of the succeeding year was 
passed in gratifying her eager inquiries for 
the names of every object which she could 
possibly handle ; in exercising her in the 
use of the manual alphabet ; in extending 
in every possible way her knowledge of the 
physical relations of things ; and in proper 
care of her health. 

" At the end of the year a report of her 
case was made, from which the following is 
an extract : — 

" ' It has been ascertained, beyond the 
possibility of doubt, that she cannot see a 
ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, 
and never exercises her sense of smell, if she 
have any. Thus her mind dwells in dark- 
ness and stillness as profound as that of 
a closed tomb at midnight. Of beautiful 
sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odors 
she has no conception ; nevertheless, she 
seems as happy and plaj-ful as a bird or a 
lamb ; and the employment of her intellect- 
ual faculties, or the acquirement of a new 
idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is 



AMERICAN NOTES 



plainly marked in her expressive features. 
She never seems to repine, but has all the 
buoyancy and gayety of childhood. She is 
fond of fun and frolic, and when playing 
with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh 
sounds loudest of the group. 

" ' When left alone, she seems very happy 
if she have her knitting or sewing, and will 
busy herself for hours : if she have no 
occupation, she evidently amuses herself by 
imaginary dialogues, or by recalling jDast 
impressions ; she counts with her fingers, or 
spells out names of things which she has 
recently learned, in the manual alphabet of 
the deaf-mutes. In this lonely self-commu- 
nion she seems to reason, reflect, and argue ; 
if she spell a word wrong with the fingers 
of her right hand, she instantly strikes it 
with her left, as her teacher does, in sign of 
disapprobation ; if right, then she pats her- 
self upon the head and looks pleased. She 
sometimes purposely spells a word wrong 
with the lell hand, looks roguish for a mo- 
ment and laughs, and then with the right 
hand strikes the left, as if to correct it. 

" ' During the year she has attained great 
dexterity in the use of the manual alphabet 
of the deaf-mutes ; and she spells out the 
words and sentences which she knows, so 
fast and so deftly, that only those accus- 
tomed to this language can follow with the 
eye the rapid motions of her fingers. 

" ' But wonderful as is the rapidity with 
which she writes her thoughts upon the air, 
still more so is the ease and accuracy with 
which she reads the words thus written by 
another ; grasping their hands in hers, and 
following every movement of their fingers, 
as letter after letter conveys their meaning 
to her mind. It is in this way that she con- 
verses with her blind playmates, and noth- 
ing can more forcibly show the power of 
mind in forcing matter to its purjiose than 
a meeting between them. For if great 
talent and skill are necessary for two pan- 
tomimes to paint their thoughts and feelings 
by the movements of the body, and the 
expression of the countenance, how much 
greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds 
them both, and the one can hear no sound ! 

" ' When Laura is walking through a 
passage-way, with her hands spread before 
her, she knows instantly every one she 
meets, and passes them with a sign of recog- 
nition ; but if it be a girl of her own age, 
and especially if it be one of her favorites, 
there is instantly a bright smile of recogni- 
tion, and a twining of arms, a grasping of 
hands, and a swift telegraphing upon the 
tiny fingers, whose rapid evolutions convey 



the thoughts and feelings from the out- 
jiosts of one mind to those of the other. 
There are (questions and answers, exchan- 
ges of joy or sorrow, there arc kissings and 
jiartings, just as between little children with 
all their senses.' 

" During this year, and six months after 
she had lett home, her mother came to visit 
her, and the scene of their meeting was an 
interesting one. 

" The mother stood some time, gazing 
with overflowing eyes upon her unfortunate 
child, who, all unconscious of her presence, 
was playing about the room. Presently 
Laura ran against her, and at once began 
feeling her hands, examining her dress, and 
trying to find out if she knew her ; but not 
succeeding in this, she turned away as from 
a stranger, and the poor woman could not 
conceal the pang she felt at finding that 
her beloved child did not know her. 

" She then gave Laura a string of beads 
which she used to wear at home, which 
were recognized by the child at once, who 
with much joy put them around her neck, 
and sought me eagerly to say she under- 
stood the string was li-om her home. 

" The mother now tried to caress her, ^ 
but poor Laura repelled her, preferring to I 
be with her acquaintances. 1 

" Another article from home was now | 
given her, and she began to look much 
interested ; she examined the stranger much 
closer, and gave me to understand that she 
knew she came from Hanover ; she even 
endured her caresses, but would leave her 
with indifference at the slightest signal. 
The distress of the mother was now painful 
to behold; for, although she had feared 
that she should not be recognized, the pain- 
ful reality of being treated with cold indif- 
ference by a darling child was too much for 
woman's nature to bear. 

" After a while, on the mother taking 
hold of her again, a vague idea seemed to 
flit across Laura's mind that this could not 
be a stranger : she therefore felt her hands 
very eagerly, while her countenance as- 
sumed an expression of intense interest ; 
she became very pale, and then suddenly 
red ; hope seemed struggling with doubt and 
anxiety, and never were contending emo- 
tions more strongly painted upon the human 
face. At this moment of painful uncer- 
tainty, the mother drew her close to her 
side, and kissed her fondly, when at once 
the truth flashed upon the child, and all 
mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her 
face, as, with an expression of exceeding 
joy, she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



25 



parent, and yielded herself to her fond em- 
braces. 

" After this, the beads were all unheeded, 
the j)laythings which were offered to her 
were utterly disregarded ; her playmates, 
for whom but a moment before she gladly 
left the stranger, now vainly strove to pull 
her from her mother ; and, though she 
yielded her usual instantaneous obedience 
to my signal to follow me, it was evidently 
with painful reluctance. She clung close 
to me, as if bewildered and fearful ; and 
when, after a moment, I took her to her 
mother, she sprang to her arms, and clung 
to her with eager joy. 

" The subsequent pai'ting between them 
showed alike the affection, the intelligence, 
and the resolution of the child. 

" Laura accompanied her mother to the 
door, clinging close to her all the way, un- 
til they arrived at the threshold, where she 
paused, and felt around to ascertain who 
was near her. Perceiving the matron, of 
whom she is very fond, she grasped her 
with one hand, holding on convulsively to 
her mother with the other ; and thus she 
stood for a moment ; then she dropped her 
mother's hand, put her handkerchief to her 
eyes, and, turning round, clung sobbing to 
the matron, while her mother departed, 
with emotions as deep as those of her 
child. 

***** 

" It has been remarked in former reports, 
that she can distinguish different degrees 
of intellect in others, and that she soon re- 
garded almost with contemjst a new-comer, 
when, after a few days, she discovered her 
weakness of mind. This unamiable part of 
her character has been more strongly devel- 
oped during the past year. 

" She chooses for her friends and com- 
panions those children who are intelligent, 
and can talk best with her; and she evi- 
dently dislikes to be with those who are 
deficient in intellect, unless, indeed, she can 
make them serve her purposes, which she is 
evidently inclined to do. She takes advan- 
tage of them, and makes them wait upon 
her, in a manner that she knows she could 
not exact of othere, and in various ways she 
shows her Saxon blood. 

" She is fond of having other children 
noticed and caressed by the teachers, and 
those whom she respects ; but this must not 
be carried too far, or she becomes jealous. 
She wants to liave her share, which, if not 
the lion's, is the greater part ; and, if she 
does not get it, she says, '•My mother loill 
love 7ne.' 



" Her tendency to imitation is so strong, 
that it leads her to actions which must be 
entirely incomprehensible to her, and which 
can give her no other pleasure than the grat- 
ification of an internal faculty. She has 
been known to sit for half an hour, holding 
a book before her sightless eyes, and mov- 
ing her lips, as she has observed seeing 
people do when reading. 

" She one day pretended that her doll 
was sick ; and went through all the motions 
of tending it, and giving it medicine ; she 
then put it carefully to bed, and placed a 
bottle of hot water to its feet, laughing all 
the time most heartily. When I came 
home, she insisted upon my going to see it, 
and feel its pulse ; and when I told her to 
jout a blister on its back, she seemed to en- 
joy it amazingly, and almost screamed with 
delight. 

" Her social feelings and her affections 
are very strong ; and when she is sitting at 
work, or at her studies, by the side of one 
of her httle friends, she will break off from 
her task every few moments to hug and 
kiss them with an earnestness and warmth 
that is touching to behold. 

" Wlien left alone, she occupies and ap- 
parently amuses herself, and seems quite 
contented ; and so strong seems to be the 
natural tendency of thought to put on the 
garb of language, that she often solilotjuizes 
in the Jinger language, slow and tedious as 
it is. But it is only when alone that she is 
quiet ; for if she becomes sensible of the 
presence of any one near her, she is restless 
until she can sit close beside them, hold 
their hand, and converse with them by 
signs. 

" In her intellectual character it is pleas- 
ing to observe an insatiable thirst for knowl- 
edge, and a (piick perception of the relations 
of things. In her moral character it is 
beautiful to behold her continual gladness, 
her keen enjoyment of existence, her ex- 
pansive love, her unhesitating confidence, 
her sympathy with suffering, her conscien- 
tiousness, truthfulness, and hopefulness." 

Such are a few fragments from the simple 
but most interesting and instructive history 
of Laura Bridgman. Tiie name of her 
great benefactor and friend, who writes it, 
is Doctor Howe. There are not many per- 
sons, I hope and believe, who, after reading 
these passages, can ever hear that name 
with indifference. 

A further account has been published by 
Dr. Howe, since the report from which I 
have just quoted. It describes her rapid 
mental gi'owth and improvement during 



26 



AMERICAN NOTES 



twelve months more, and brings her little 
history down to the end of last year. It 
is very remarkable, that as we dream in 
words, and carry on imaginary conversa- 
tions, in which we speak both for ourselves 
and for the shadows who appear to us in 
those visions of the night, so she, having 
no words, uses her finger alphabet in her 
sleep. And it has been ascertained, that, 
when her slumber is broken, and is much 
disturbed by dreams, she expresses her 
thoughts in an irregular and confused man- 
ner on her fingers ; just as we should mur- 
mur and mutter them indistinctly, in the 
like circumstances. 

I turned over the leaves of her Diary, 
and found it written in a fair legible scjuare 
hand, and expressed in terms which Avei'e 
quite Intelligible without any cxjilanatlon. 
On my saying that I should like to see her 
write again, the teacher who sat beside her 
bade her. In their language, sign her name 
upon a slip of paper, twice or thrice. In 
doing so, I observed that she kept her left 
hand always touching, and following up, 
her right, in which, of course, she held the 
pen. No line was Indicated by any contri- 
vance, but she wrote straight and freely. 

She had, until now, been quite uncon- 
scious of the presence of visitors ; but, hav- 
ing her hand placed in that of the gentleman 
who accompanied me, she immediately ex- 
pressed his name upon her teacher's paliii. 
Indeed, her sense of touch Is now so exqui- 
site, that, having been acquainted with a 
person once, she can recognize him or her 
after almost any interval. This gentleman 
had been in her company, I believe, but 
very seldom, and certainly had not seen 
her for many months. My hand she re- 
jected at once, as she does that of any man 
Avho is a stranger to her. But she retained 
my wife's with evident pleasure, kissed her, 
and examined her dress with a girl's curios- 
ity and interest. 

She was merry and cheerful, and showed 
much Innocent playfulness in her inter- 
course with her teacher. Her delight on 
recognizing a favorite playfellow and com- 
panion, — herself a blind girl, — who si- 
lently, and with an equal enjoyment of the 
coming surprise, took a seat beside her, 
was beautiful to witness. It elicited from 
her at first, as other slight circumstances 
did twice or thrice during my visit, an un- 
couth noise Avhicli was rather painful to 
hear. But, on her teacher touching her 
lips, she immediately desisted, and embraced 
her laughingly and affectionately. 

I had previously been into another cham- 



ber, where a number of blind boys were 
swinging, and climbing, and engaged in 
various sports. They all clamored, as we 
entered, to the assistant master, who accom- 
panied us, " Look at me, Mr. Hart ! Please, 
Mr. Ilart, look at me ! " evincing, I thought 
even in this, an anxiety peculiar to their 
condition, that their little feats of agility 
should be seen. Among them was a small 
laughing fellow, who stood aloof, entertain- 
ing himself with a gymnastic exercise for 
bringing the arms and chest Into play, which 
he enjoyed mightily, especially when, in 
thrusting out his right arm, he brought it 
Into contact with another boy. Like Laura 
Brldgman, this young child was deaf, and 
dumb, and blind. 

Dr. Howe's account of this pujill's first 
Instruction is so very striking, antl so inti- 
mately connected with Laura herself, that 
I cannot refrain from a short extract. I 
may premise that the poor boy's name is 
Oliver Caswell, that he is thirteen years of 
age, and that he was in full possession of all 
his faculties, until three years and four 
months old. He was then attacked by 
scarlet fever ; in four weeks became deaf, 
in a few weeks more blind, in six months 
dumb. He showed his anxious sense of this 
last deprivation, by often feeling the lips of 
other persons when they were talking, and 
then putting his hand upon his own, as if to 
assure himself that he had them In the right 
position. 

" His thirst for knowledge," says Dr. 
Howe, " proclaimed itself, as soon as he en- 
tered the house, by his eager examination 
of everything he could feel or smell in his 
new location. For instance, treading up- 
on the register of a furnace, he instantly 
stooped down, and began to feci It, and 
soon discovered the way in which the upper 
plate moved upon the lower one ; but this 
Avas not enough for him, so, lying down up- 
on his flxcc, he applied his tongue first to 
one, then to the other, and seemed to dis- 
cover that they were of different kinds of 
metal. 

" His signs were expressive ; and the 
strictly natural language, laughing, crying, 
sighing, kissing, embracing, &c., was per- 
fect. 

" Some of the analogical signs which 
(guided by his faculty of imitation) he had 
contrived, were comprehensible, such as the 
waving motion of his hand for the motion 
of a boat, the circular one for a wheel, &c. 

" The first object was to break up the 
use of these signs and to substitute for them 
the use of purely arbltrar}- ones. 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



27 



" Profiting by the experience I had gained 
in the other cases, I omitted several steps 
of the process before employed, and com- 
menced at once with the finger language. 
Taking, therefore, several articles having 
short names, such as key, cup, mug, &c., and 
with Laura for an auxiliary, I sat down, 
and, taking his hand, placed it upon one of 
them, and then, with my own, made the 
letters key. He felt my hands eagerly 
with both of his, and, on my repeating the 
process, he evidently tried to imitate the 
motions of my fingei-s. In a few minutes 
he contrived to feel the motions of my fin- 
gers with one hand, and, holding out the 
other, he tried to imitate them, laughing 
most heartily when he succeeded. Laura 
was by, interested even to agitation, and 
the two presented a singular sight ; her 
face was flushed and anxious, and her fin- 
gers twined in among ours so closely as to 
follow every motion, but so lightly as not to 
embarrass them ; Avhile Oliver stood atten- 
tive, his head a little aside, his face turned 
up, his left hand grasping mine, and liis 
right held out. At every motion of my 
fingers his countenance betokened keen 
attention ; there was an expression of anx- 
iety as he tried to imitate the motions ; 
then a smile came stealing out as he thought 
he could do so, and spread into a joyous 
laugh the moment he succeeded, and felt 
me pat his head, and Laura clap him heart- 
ily upon the back, and jump up and down 
in her joy. 

" He learned more than a half-dozen let- 
lers in half an hour, and seemed delighted 
with his success, at least in gaining appro- 
bation. His attention then began to fiag, 
and I commenced playing with him. It 
was evident that in all this he had merely 
been imitating the motions of my fingers, 
and placing his hand upon the "key, cup, 
&c., as part of the process, without any 
perception of the relation between the sign 
and the object. 

" AVhen he was tired with play, I took 
him back to the table ; and he was quite 
ready to begin again his pi-ocess of imita- 
tion. He soon learned to make the letters 
for ke)j, pen, pin ; and, by having the object 
repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last 
perceived the relation I wished to establish 
between them. This was evident, because, 
when I made the letters p i n, or ;:> e n, or 
cup, he Avonld select the article. 

" The perception of this relation was not 
accompanied by that radiant flash of intel- 
ligence, and that glow of joy, which marked 
the delightful moment when Laura first 



perceived it. I then placed all the articles 
on the table, and, going away a little dis- 
tance with the children, placed Oliver's 
fingers in the position to spell key, on which 
Laux-a went and brought the article. The 
little fellow seemed to be much amused by 
this, and looked very attentive and smil- 
ing. I then caused him to make the letters 
brea d, and in an instant Laura went and 
brought him a piece. He smelled at it, put 
it to his lips, cocked up his head with a 
most knowing look ; seemed to reflect a 
moment, and then laughed outright, as 
much as to say, ' Aha ! 1 understand now 
how something may be made out of this.' 

" It was now clear that he had the ca- 
pacity and inclination to learn, — that he 
was a proper subject for instruction, and 
needed only persevering attention. I 
therefore put him in the hands of an intel- 
ligent teacher, nothing doubting of his rapid 
progress." 

"Well may this gentleman call that a de- 
lightful moment, in which some distant 
promise of her present state first gleamed 
upon the darkened mind of Laura Bridg- 
man. Throughout his life the recollection 
of that moment will be to him a source of 
pure, unfading happiness ; nor will it shine 
least brightly on the evening of his days of 
Noble Usefulness. 

The affection that exists between these 
two — the master and the pupil — is as far 
removed from all ordinary care and regard 
as the circumstances in which it has had its 
growth are apart from the common occur- 
rences of life. He is occupied now in de- 
vising means of imparting to her higher 
knowledge, and of conveying to her some 
adequate idea of the Great Creator of that 
universe in which, dark and silent and 
scentless though it be to her, she has such 
deep delight and glad enjoyment. 

Ye who have eyes and see not, and have . 
ears and hear not ; ye who are as the hypo- 
crites of sad countenances, and disfigure 
your faces that ye may seem unto men to 
fast ; learn healthy cheerfulness, and mild 
contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and 
blind ! Self-elected saints with gloomy 
brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child 
may teach you lessons you will do well to 
follow. Let that j^oor hand of hers lie 
gently on your hearts, for there may be 
something in its healing touch akin to that 
of the Great Master whose precepts you 
misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of 
whose charity and sympathy with all the 
world not one among you in his daily prac- 
tice knows as much as raan\- of the worst 



28 



AMERICAN NOTES 



among those fallen sinners to whom you are 
liberal in nothing but the preachment of 
perdition ! 

As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little 
child of one of the attendants came running 
in to greet its father. For the moment, a 
child with eyes, among the sightless crowd, 
impressed me almost as painfully as the 
blind boy in the porch had done two hours 
ago. Ah ! how much brighter and more 
deeply blue, glowing and rich though it had 
been before, was the scene without, con- 
trasting with the darkness of so many 
youthful lives within ! 



At South Bostox, as it is called, in a 
situation excellently adapted for the pur- 
pose, several charitable institutions are 
clustered together. One of these is the 
State Hospital for the insane ; admirably 
conducted on those enlightened principles 
of conciUation and kindness which twenty 
years ago would have been worse than 
heretical, and which have been acted upon 
with so much success in our own pauper 
asylum at Hanwell. " Evince a desire to 
show some confidence, and repose some 
trust, even in mad people," said the resident 
physician, as we walked along the galleries, 
his patients flocking round us unrestrained. 
Of those who deny or doubt the wisdom of 
this maxim after witnessing its effects, if 
there be such people still alive, I can only 
say that I hope I may never be summoned 
as a JurjTTian on a Commission of Lunacy 
whereof they are the subjects ; for I should 
certainly find them out of their senses on 
such evidence alone. 

Each ward in this institution is shaj^ed 
like a long gallery or hall, with the dor- 
mitories of the patients opening from it on 
either hand. Here they work, read, play 
at skittles and other games, and when the 
weather does not admit of their taking ex- 
ercise out of doors, pass the day together. 
In one of these rooms, seated calmly, and 
quite as a matter of course, among a throng 
of madwomen, black and white, were the 
physician's wife and another lady, with a 
couple of children. These ladies were 
graceful and handsome ; and it was not 
difficult to perceive at a glance that even 
their presence there had a highly beneficial 
influence on the patients who were grouped 
about them. 

Leaning her head against the chimney- 
piece, with a great assumption of dignity 
and refinement of manner, sat an eldei-ly 
female, in as many scraps of finery as 



Madge Wildfire herself Her head, in par- 
ticular, was so strewn with scraps of gauze 
and cotton and bits of paper, and had so 
many queer odds and ends stuck all about 
it, that it looked like a bird's-nest. She 
was radiant with imaginary jewels ; wore a 
rich pair of undoubted gold spectacles ; and 
gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we ap- 
proached, a very old greasy newspaper, in 
which I dare say she had been reading an 
account of her own jiresentation at some 
Foreign Court. 

I have been thus particular in describing 
her because she will serve to exemplify the 
physician's manner of acquiring and retain- 
ing the confidence of his patients. 

" This," he said aloud, taking me by the 
hand, and advancing to the fantastic figure 
with great politeness, not raising her sus- 
picions by the slightest look or whlsjier, or 
any kind of aside to me, — " this lady is 
the hostess of tliis mansion, sir. It belongs 
to her. Nobody else has anything what- 
ever to do with it. It is a large establish- 
ment, as you see, and requires a great num- 
ber of attendants. She lives, you observe, 
in the very first style. She is kind enough 
to receive my visits, and to permit my wife 
and family to reside here ; for which, it is 
hardly necessary to say, we are much in- 
debted to her. She is exceedingly cour- 
teous, you perceive," on this hint she bowed 
condescendingly, " and will permit me to 
have the pleasure of introducing you ; a 
gentleman from England, ma'am, newly ar- 
rived from England, after a very tempestu- 
ous passage ; Mr. Dickens — the lady of 
the house ! " 

We exchanged the most dignified saluta- 
tions with profound gravity and respeot, 
and so went on. The rest of the mad- 
women seemed to understand the joke per- 
fectly (not only in this case, but in all the 
others, except their own), and to be highly 
amused by it. The nature of their several 
kinds of insanity was made known to me in 
the same way, and we left each of them In 
high good-hiimor. Not only is a thorough 
confidence established by these means be- 
tween physician and patient, in respect of 
the nature and extent of their hallucina- 
tions, but it is easy to understand that op- 
portunities are afforded for seizing any mo- 
ment of reason to startle them by placing 
their own delusion before them in its most 
incongruous and ridiculous light. 

Every patient In this asylum sits down to 
dinner every day with a knife and fork ; 
and in tlie midst of them sits the gentleman 
whose manner of dealing Avith his charges I 






FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



29 



have just described. At every meal moral 
influence alone restrains the more violent 
among them from cutting the throats of the 
rest ; but the effect of that influence is re- 
duced to an absolute certainty, and is found, 
even as a means of restraint, to say nothing 
of it as a means of cure, a hundred times 
more efficacious than all the strait-waist- 
coats, fetters, and handcuffs that ignorance, 
prejudice, and cruelty have manufactured 
since the creation of the world. 

In the labor department every patient is 
as freely trusted with the tools of his trade 
as if he were a sane man. In the garden 
and on the flxrm they work with spades, 
rakes, and hoes. For amusement they 
walk, run, fish, paint, read, and ride out to 
take the air in carriages provided for the 
purpose. They have among themselves a 
sewing-society to make clothes for the poor, 
which holds meetings, passes resolutions, 
never comes to fisticuffs or bowie-knives, as 
sane assemblies have been known to do 
elsewhere, and conducts all its proceedings 
with the. greatest decorum. The irritabili- 
ty which would otherwise be expended on 
their own flesh, clothes, and furniture is 
dissipated in these pursuits. They are 
cheerful, tranquil, and healthy. 

Once a week they have a ball, in which 
the Doctor and his family, with all the 
nurses and attendants, take an active part. 
Dances and marches are performed alter- 
nately to the enlivening strains of a piano ; 
and now and then some gentleman or lady 
(whose proficiency has been j^i'evlously as- 
certained) obliges the company with a 
song ; nor does it ever degenerate, at a ten- 
der crisis, Into a screech or howl ; wherein, 
I must confess, I should have thought the 
danger lay. At an early hour they all meet 
together for these festive purposes ; at eight 
o'clock refreshments are served ; and at nine 
they separate. 

Immense politeness and good-breeding 
are observed throughout. They all take 
their tone from the Doctor, and he moves a 
very Chesterfield among the company. 
Like other assemblies, these entertainments 
afford a fruitful tojjic of conversation 
among the ladies for some days ; and the 
gentlemen are so anxious to shine on these 
occasions, that they have been sometimes 
found " practising their steps " in private, 
to cut a more distinguished figure in the 
dance. 

It is obvious that one great feature of 
this system is the inculcation and encour- 
agement, even among such unhappy per- 
sons, of a decent self-respect. Something of 



the same spirit pervades aU the institutions 
at South Boston. 

There is the House of Industry. In that 
branch of it which Is devoted to the recep- 
tion of old or otherwise helpless paupers, 
these words are painted on the walls : 
" Worthy op Notice. Self-Goverx- 
MENT, Quietude, and Peace are 
Blessings." It is not assumed and taken 
for gi*anted, that, being there, they must be 
evil-disposed and wicked people, before 
whose vicious eyes it is necessary to flourish 
threats and harsh restraints. They are met 
at the very threshold with this mild appeal. 
All within doors is very plain and simple, 
as it ought to be, but arranged with a view 
to peace and comfort. It costs no more 
than any other plan of arrangement, but it 
bespeaks an amount of consideration for 
those who are reduced to seek a shelter 
there which puts them at once upon their 
gratitude and good behavior. Instead of 
being parcelled out in great, long, rambling 
wards, where a certain amount of weazen 
life may mope and pine and shiver all day 
long, the building is divided into separate 
rooms, each with its share of light and air. 
In these the better kind of paupers live. 
They have a motive for exertion, and be- 
coming pride in the desire to make these 
little chambers comfortable and decent. I 
do not remember one but it was clean and 
neat, and had its plant or two upon the 
window-sill, or row of crockery upon the 
shelf, or small display of colored prints up- 
on the whitewashed wall, or perhaps its 
wooden clock behind the door. 

The orphans and young children are in 
an adjoining building, separate from this, 
but a part of the same Institution. Some 
are such little creatures that the stairs are 
of Lillj3utian measurement, fitted to their 
tiny strides. The same consideration for 
their years and weakness is expressed in 
their very seats, which are perfect curiosi- 
ties, and look like articles of furniture for a 
pauper doU's-house. I can imagine the 
glee of our Poor-Law Commissioners at the 
notion of these seats having arms and backs ; 
but small spines being of older date than 
their occupation of the Board-room at Som- 
erset House, I thought even this provision 
very merciful and kind. 

Here, again, I was greatly pleased with 
the inscriptions on the wall, which were 
scraps of plain morality, easily remembered 
and understood, such as, "Love one an- 
other," " God remembers the smallest 
creature in his creation," and straightfor- 
ward advice of that nature. The books 



30 



AMERICAN NOTES 



and tasks of these smallest of scholars were 
adapted in the same judicious manner to 
their childish powers. When wo had ex- 
amined these lessons, four morsels of girls, 
(of whom one was blind) san^ a little song 
about the merry month of May, which I 
thought (being extremely dismal) would 
have suited an English November better. 
That done, we went to see their sleeping- 
rooms on the floor above, in which the ar- 
rangements were no less excellent and gen- 
tle than those we had seen below. And 
after observing that the teachers were of a 
class and character well suited to the spirit 
of the place, I took leave of the infants with 
a lighter heart than ever I have taken 
leave of pauj^er infants yet. 

Connected with the House of Industry 
there is also an Hospital, which was in the 
best order, and had, I am glad to say, many" 
beds unoccupied. It had one fliult, how- 
ever, which is common to all American in- 
teriors, — the presence of the eternal, ac- 
cursed, suffocating, red-hot demon of a 
stove, whose breath would blight the purest 
air under Heaven. 

There are two establishments for boys in 
this same neighborhood. One is called the 
Boylston School, and is an asylum for neg- 
lected and indigent boys who have com- 
mitted no crime, but who, in the ordinary 
course of things, would very soon be purged 
of that distinction if they were not taken 
from the hungry streets and sent here. 
The other is a House of Reformation for 
Juvenile Offenders. They are both iflider 
the same roof; but the two classes of boys 
never come in contact. 

The Boylston boys, as may be readily 
supposed, have very much the advantage of 
the others in point of personal appearance. 
They were in their school-room when I 
came upon them, and answered correctly, 
without book, such questions as, where was 
England, how far was it, what was its pop- 
ulation, its capital city, its form of govern- 
ment, and so forth. They sang a song, too, 
about a flirmer sowing his seed, with corre- 
sponding action at such parts as, " 't is thus 
he sows," " he turns him round," " he claps 
his hands," Avhich gave it greater interest 
for them, and accustomed them to act to- 
gether in an orderly manner. They ap- 
peared exceedingly well taught, and not 
better taught than fed, for a more chubby- 
looking, full-waistcoated set of boys I never 
saw. 

The juvenile offenders had not such 
pleasant faces by a great deal, and in this 
establishment there were many boys of col- 



or. I saw them first at their work (basket- 
making, and the manufacture of palm-leaf 
hats), afterwards in tlieir school, where they 
sang a chorus in praise of Liberty, — an 
odd, and, one would tliink, rather aggravat- 
ing theme for prisoners. These boys Avere 
divided into four classes, each denoted by 
a numeral, worn on a badge upon the arm. 
On the arrival of a new-comer, he is put in- 
to the fourth or lowest class, and left, by 
good behavior, to work his way up into the 
first. The design and object of this Institu- 
tion is to reclaim the jouthful criminal by 
firm but kind and judicious treatment; to 
make his prison a place of purification and 
improvement, not of demoralization and 
corruption ; to impress upon him that there 
is but one path, and that one sober indus- 
try, which can ever lead him to ha]>piness ; 
to teach him how it may be trodden, if 
his footsteps have never yet been led that 
way ; and to lure him back to it if they 
have strayed ; in a word, to snatch him 
from destruction, and restore him to society 
a jienitent and useful member. The im- 
portance of such an establishment in every 
point of view, and with reference to every 
consideration of humanity and social ijolicy, 
reqiiires no comment. 

One other establishment closes the cata- 
logue. It is the House of Correction for 
the State, in which silence is strictly main- 
tained, but where the prisoners have the 
comfort and mental relief of seeing each 
other and of working together. This is the 
improved system of Prison Discii^line which 
we have imported into England, and which 
has been in successful operation among us 
for some years past. 

America, as a new and not over-populat- 
ed country, has in all her prisons the one 
great advantage of being enabled to find 
useful and profitable work for the inmates ; 
whereas, Avith us, the 23rtjudice against pris- 
on labor is naturally very strong, and almost 
insurmountable, when honest men, who 
have not offended against the laws, are fre- 
quently doomed to seek employment in 
vain. Even in the United States the prin- 
ciple of bringing convict labor and free la- 
bor into a competition which must obvious- 
ly be to the disadvantage of the latter has 
ah-eady found many op]ionents, whose num- 
ber is not likely to diminish with access of 
years. 

For this very reason, though, our best 
prisons would seem at the first glance to be 
better conducted than those of America. 
The treadmill is accompanied with little or 
no noise ; five hundred men may pick oakum 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



in the same room without a sound ; and 
both kinds of labor admit of such keen and 
vigihxnt superintendence as will render 
even a word of personal communication 
among the prisoners almost impossible. On 
the other hand, the noise of the loom, the 
forge, the cai-penter's hammer, or the stone- 
mason's saw, greatly favor those opportuni- 
ties of intercourse, — hurried and brief, no 
doubt, but opportunities still, — which these 
several kinds of work, by rendering it ne- 
cessary for men to be employed very near 
to each other, and often side by side, with- 
out any barrier or partition between them, 
in their very nature present. A visitor, 
too, requires to reason and reflect a little, 
before the sight of a number of men en- 
gaged in ordinary labor, such as he is ac- 
customed to out of doors, will impress him 
half as strongly as the contemplation of the 
same persons in the same place and garb 
would, if they were occupied in some task 
marked and degraded everywhere as be- 
longing only to felons in jails. In an Amer- 
ican State prison or house of correction, I 
found it diflicult at first to persuade myself 
that I was really in a jail, — a place of igno- 
minious punishment and endurance. And 
to this hour I very much question whether 
the humane boast that it is not like one has 
its root in the true wisdom or philosophy 
of the matter. 

I hope I may not be misunderstood on 
this subject, for it is one in which I take a 
strong and deep interest. I incline as little 
to the sickly feeling which makes every 
canting lie or maudlin speech of a notorious 
criminal a suliject of newspaper report and 
general sympathy, as I do to those good old 
customs of the good old times which made 
England, even so recently as in the reign 
of the Third King George, in i-espect of her 
criminal code and her prison regulations, 
one of the most bloody-minded and barba- 
rous countries on the earth. If I thought it 
would do any good to the rising generation, 

i I would cheerfully give my consent to the dis- 
interment of the bones of any genteel high- 
wayman (the more genteel, the more cheer- 
fully), and to their exposure, piecemeal, on 
any sign-post, gate, or gibbet that might be 
deemed a good elevation for the purpose. 
My reason is as well convinced that these 
gentry were utterly worthless and de- 
bauched villains, as it is that the laws and 
jails liardened them in their evil courses, or 
that their wonderful escapes were elFected 
by the prison-turnkeys, who, in those adnii- 

I rable days, had always been felons them- 
selves, and were, to the last, their bosom 



friends and pot-companions. At the same 
time I know, as all men do or should, that 
the subject of Prison Discipline is one of 
the highest importance to any community ; 
and that, in her sweeping reform and bright 
example to other countries on this head, 
America has shown great wisdom, great 
benevolence, and exalted policy. In con- 
trasting her system with that which we 
have modelled upon it, I merely seek to 
show that, with all its drawbacks, ours has 
some advantages of its own.* 

The House of Correction which has led 
to these remarks is not walled like other 
prisons, but is palisaded round about with 
tall rough stakes, something after the man- 
ner of an enclosure for keeping elephants 
in, as we see it represented in Eastern 
prints and pictures. The prisoners wear a 
party-colored dress ; and those who are 
sentenced to hard labor work at nail-making 
or stone-cutting. When I was there, the 
latter class of laborers were employed upon 
the stone for a new custom-house in course 
of erection at Boston. They appeared to 
shape it skilfully and with expedition, 
though there were very few among them 
(if any) who had not acquired the art 
within the prison gates. 

The women, all in one large room, were 
employed in making light clotlilng for New 
Orleans and the Southern States. They 
did their work in silence, like the men ; and, 
like them, were overlooked by the person 
contracting for their labor, or by some 
agent of his appointment. In addition to 
this, they are every moment liable to be 
visited by the prison officers appointed for 
that purpose. 

The arrangements for cooking, washing 
of clothes, and so forth, are much upon the 
plan of those I have seen at home. Their 
mode of bestowing the prisoners at night 
(which is of general adoption) differs from 
ours, and is both simple and effective. In 

*• Apart from profit made by the useful labor 
of prisoners, which we can never hope to reahze 
to any great extent, and which it is perhaps not 
expedient for us to try to gain, tliere are two 
prisons in London, in all respects equal, and in 
some decidedly superior, to any I saw or have ever 
heard or read of in America. One is the Tothill 
Fields Bridewell, conducted by Lieutenant A. F. 
Tracey, 1>. N. ; the other, the Middlesex House of 
Correction, superintended by Mr. Chesterton. 
This gentleman also holds an appointment in the 
Public Service. Both are enlightened and superior 
men; and it would be as difficult to find persons 
better qualified for the functions they discharge 
with firmness, zeal, intelligence, and humanity, 
as it would be to exceed the perfect order and 
arrangement of the institutions they govern. 



32 



AMERICAN NOTES 



the centre of a lofty area, lighted by win- 
dows in the four walls, are five tiers of cells, 
one above the other ; each tier having be- 
fore it a light iron gallery, attainable by 
stairs of the same construction and materi- 
al ; excepting the lower one, which is on 
the ground. Behind these, back to back 
with them and flicing the opposite wall, are 
five corresponding rows of cells, accessible 
by similar means ; so that, supposing the 
prisoners locked up in their cells, an officer 
stationed on the ground, with his back to 
the wall, has half their number under his 
eye at once ; the remaining half being 
equally under the observation of another 
officer on the opposite side ; and all in one 
great apartment. Unless this watch be 
corrupted, or sleeping on his jiost, it is im- 
possible for a man to escape ; for even in 
the event of his forcing the iron door of his 
cell without noise (which is exceedingly im- 
probable), the moment he appears outside, 
and steps into that one of the five galleries 
on which it is situated, he must be plain- 
ly and fully visible to the officer below. 
Each of these cells holds a small truckle- 
bed, in which one prisoner sleeps ; never 
more. It is small, of course ; and the door 
being not solid, but grated, and without 
blind or curtain, the prisoner within is at 
all times exposed to the observation and in- 
spection of any guard who may pass along 
that tier at any hour or minute of the night. 
Every day the prisoners receive their din- 
ner, singly, through a trap in the kitchen 
wall ; and each man cari-ies his to his sleej)- 
ing-cell to eat it, where he is locked up, 
alone, for that jwrpose, one hour. The 
whole of this arrangement struck me as be- 
ing admirable ; and I hope that the next 
new prison we erect in England may be 
built on this plan. 

I was given to understand that in this 
prison no swords or fire-arms, or even cud- 
gels, are kept ; nor is it prolDable that, so 
long as its present excellent management 
continues, any weapon, offensive or defen- 
sive, will ever be required within its bounds. 

Such are the Institutions at South Bos- 
ton ! In all of them the unfortunate or de- 
generate citizens of the State are carefully 
instructed in their duties both to God and 
man ; are surrounded by all reasonable 
means of comfort and happiness that their 
condition will admit of; arc appealed to, 
as memljei-s of the great human family, how- 
ever afflicted, indigent, or fallen ; are ruled 
by the strong Heart, and not by the strong 
(though immeasurably weaker) Hand. I 
have described them at some length : first- 



ly, because their worth demanded it ; and 
secondly, because I mean to take them for 
a model, and to content myself with saying 
of others we may come to, whose design and 
purpose are the same, that in this or that 
respect they practically fail or differ. 

I wish by this account of them, imperfect 
in its execution, but, in its just intention, 
honest, I could hope to convey to my read- 
ei-s one hundredth part of the gratification 
the sights I have described afforded me. 



To an Englishman, accustomed to the 
liaraphernalla of Westminster Hall, an 
American Court of Law is as odd a sight 
as I suj^pose an English Court of Law would 
be to an American. Except in the Su- 
preme Court at Washington (where the 
judges wear a plain black robe), there is 
no such thing as a wig or gown connected 
with the administration of justice. The 
gentlemen of the bar being barristers and 
attorneys too (for there is no division of 
those functions as in England) are no more 
removed from their clients than attorneys 
in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent 
Debtors are fi'om theirs. The jury are 
quite at home, and make themselves as com- 
fortable as circumstances will permit. The 
witness is so little elevated above, or put 
aloof from, the crowd in the court, that a 
stranger entering during a pause in the 
proceedings would find it difficult to pick 
him out from the rest. And if it chanced 
to be a criminal trial, his eyes in niije cases 
out of ten would' wander to the dock in 
search of the prisoner in vain ; for that 
gentleman would most likely be lounging 
among the most distinguished ornaments 
of the legal jirofesslon, whispering sugges- 
tions in his counsel's ear, or making a tooth- 
pick out of an old quill with his penknife. 

I could not but notice these differences 
when I visited the courts at Boston. I 
was much surprised at first, too, to observe 
that the counsel who interrogated the wit- 
ness under examination at the time did so 
sitting. But seeing that he was also occu- 
pied in writing down the answers, and re- 
membering^ that he was alone and had no 
"junior," I quickly consoled myself with 
the reflection that law was not quite so ex- 
pensive an article here as at home ; and 
that the absence of sundry formalities which 
we regard as indis])cnsable had doubtless 
a very favorable influence upon the bill of 
costs. 

In every court ample and commodious 
provision is made for the accommodation 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



of the citizens. This is the case all through 
America. In every Public Institution the 
right of the people to attend, and to have 
an interest in the proceedings, is most fully 
and distinctly recognized. There are no 
grim doorkeepers to dole out their tardy 
civility by the sixpenny worth ; nor is there, 
I sincerely believe, any insolence of office 
of any kind. Nothing national is exhibited 
for money ; and no public officer is a show- 
man. We have begun of late years to 
imitate this good example. I hope we 
shall continue to do so; and that, in the 
fulness of time, even deans and chapters 
may be converted. 

In the civil court an action was trying 
for damages sustained in some accident 
upon a railway. The witnesses had been 
examined, and counsel was addressing the 
jury. The learned gentleman (like a few 
of his English brethren) was desperately 
long-winded, and had a remarkable capaci- 
ty of saying the same thing over and over 
again. Ilis great theme was " Warren the 
engine-driver," whom he pressed into the 
service of every sentence he uttered. I 
listened to him for about a quarter of an 
hour ; and, coming out of court at the ex- 
piration of that time, without the faintest 
ray of enlightenment as to the merits of the 
case, felt as if I were at home again. 

In the prisoners' cell, waiting to be ex- 
amined by the magistrate on a charge of 
theft, was a boy. This lad, instead of 
being committed to a common jail, would 
be sent to the asylum at South Boston, and 
there taught a trade ; and, in the course of 
time, he would be bound apprentice to some 
respectable master. Thus his detection in 
this offi^nce, instead of being the prelude to 
a life of infamy and a miserable death, 
would lead, there was a reasonable hope, 
to his being reclaimed from vice, and be- 
coming a worthy member of society. 

I am by no means a wholesale admirer 
of our legal solemnities, many of which im- 
press me as being exceedingly ludicrous. 
Strange as it may seem, too, there is un- 
doubtedly a degree of protection in the wig 
and gown, — a dismissal of individual re- 
sponsibility in dressing for the part, — 
which encourages that insolent bearing and 
language, and that gross perversion of the 
office of a pleader for The Truth, so fre- 
quent in our courts of law. Still, I cannot 
help doubting whether America, in her de- 
sire to shake off the absurdities and abuses 
of the old system, may not have gone too 
far into the opposite extreme ; and whether 
it is not desirable, especially in the small 
3 



community of a city like this, where each 
man knows the other, to surround the ad- 
ministration of justice with some artificial 
barriers against the " Hail fellow, well met " 
deportment of every-day life. AH the aid 
it can have in the very high character and 
ability of the Bench, not only here but 
elsewhere, it has, and well deserves to 
have ; but it may need something more, — 
not to impress the thoughtful and the well- 
informed, but the ignorant and heedless, — 
a class which includes some prisoners and 
many witnesses. These institutions were 
established, no doubt, upon the principle 
that those who had so large a share in 
making the laws would certainly respect 
them. But experience has jjroved this 
hope to be fallacious ; for no men know 
better than the judges of America, that on 
the occasion of any great popular excite- 
ment the law is powerless, and cannot, for 
the time, assert its own supremacy. 

The tone of society in Boston is one of 
perfect politeness, courtesy, and good breed- 
ing. The ladies are unquestionably very 
beautiful — in face ; but there I am com- 
pelled to stop. Their education is much as 
with us; neither better nor woi-se. I had 
heard some very marvellous stories in this 
respect ; but, not believing them, was not 
disappointed. Blue ladies there are in Bos- 
ton ; but, like philosophers of that color and 
sex in most other latitudes, they rather de- 
sire to be thought superior than to be so. 
Evangelical ladies there are, likewise, whose 
attachment to the forms of religion, and 
horror of theatrical entertainments, are most 
exemplary. Ladies who have a passion for 
attending lectures are to be found among 
all classes and all conditions. In the kind 
of provincial life which prevails in cities 
such as this, the Pulpit has great influence. 
The peculiar province of the Pulpit in New 
England (always excepting the Unitarian 
ministry) would appear to ha the denounce- 
ment of all innocent and rational amuse- 
ments. The church, the chapel, and the 
lecture-room are the only means of excite- 
ment excepted ; and to the church, the 
chapel, and the lecture-room the ladies re- 
sort in crowds. 

Wherever religion is resorted to, as a 
strong drink, and as an escape from the 
dull, monotonous round of home, those of 
its ministers who pepper the highest will be 
the surest to please. They who strew the 
Eternal Path with the greatest amount of 
brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread 
down the flowers and leaves that grow by 
the wayside, will be voted the most right- 



AMERICAN NOTES 



eous ; and they who enlarge with the great- 
est pertinacity on the difficulty of getting 
into heaven will be considered by all true 
believers certain of going there, though it 
would be hard to say by what process of 
reasoning this conclusion is arrived at. It 
is so at home, and it is so abroad. AVith 
regard to the other means of excitement, 
the Lecture;, it has at least the merit of be- 
ing always new. One lecture treads so 
quickly on the heels of another, that none 
are remembered ; and the coui-se of this 
month may be safely repeated next, with 
its charm of novelty unbroken, and its inter- 
est unabated. 

The fruits of the earth have their growth 
in corruption. Out of the rottenness of 
these things there has sprung up in Boston 
a sect of philosophers known as Transcen- 
dentalists. On inquiring what this ajipella- 
tion might be supposed to signify, I Avas 
given to understand that whatever was un- 
intelligible would be certainly transcenden- 
tal. Not deriving much comfort from this 
elucidation, I pursued the inquiry still fur- 
ther, and found that the Transcendentalists 
are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or, I 
should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. This gentleman 
has written a volume of Essays, in which, 
among much that is dreamy and fanciful (if 
he will pardon me for saying so), there is 
much more that is true and manly, honest 
and bold. TranscendentaUsm has its occa- 
sional vagaries, (what school has not ? ) but 
it has good healthful qualities in spite of 
them ; not least among the number a hearty 
disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to detect 
her in all the million varieties of her ever- 
lasting wardrobe. And therefore, if I were 
a Bostonian, I think I would be a Tran- 
scendentalist. 

The only preacher I heard in Boston 
was ]\Ir. Taylor, who addresses himself pe- 
culiarly to seamen, and who was once a 
mariner himself. 1 found- his chapel down 
among the shipping, in one of the narrow 
old water-side streets, with a gay blue flag 
waving freely from its roof. In the gallery 
opposite to the pulpit were a little choir 
of male and female singers, a violoncello, 
and a violin. The j^reaeher already sat 
in the pulpit, which was raised on pillars, 
and ornamented behind him with painted 
drapei-y of a lively and somewhat theatrical 
appearance. He looked a wcatherbeaten 
hard-featured man, of about six or eight 
and fifty ; with deep lines graven as it 
Avere into his face, dark hair, and a stern, 
keen eye. Yet the general character of 



his countenance was pleasant and agree- 
able. 

The service commenced with a hymn, to 
which succeeded an extemporary prayer. It 
had the fault of frequent repetition, inciden- 
tal to all such prayers ; but it was plain and 
comprehensive in its doctrines, and breathed 
a tone of general sympathy and charity, 
which is not so commonly a characteristic of 
this form of address to the Deity as it might 
be. That done, he opened his discourse, 
taking for his text a passage from tlie Song 
of Solomon, laid upon the desk before the 
commencement of the service by some vm- 
known member of the congregation : " "Who 
is tills coming up from the wilderness, leaning 
on the arm of her beloved ? " 

lie handled his text in aU kinds of ways, 
and twisted it into all manner of shapes ; . 
but always ingeniously, and with a rude elo- 
cjuence well adapted to the comprehension 
of his hearers. Indeed, if I be not mistaken, 
he studied their sympathies and understand- 
ings much more than the display of his own 
powers. His imagery was all drawn from 
the sea, and from the incidents of a seaman's 
life, and was often remarkably good. He 
spoke to them of " that glorious man, Lord 
Nelson," and of Collingwood ; and drew 
nothing in, as the saying is, by the head and 
shoulders, but brought it to bear upon his 
purpose naturally, and with a sharp mind to 
its effect. Sometimes, when much excited 
with his subject, he had an odd way — com- 
pounded of John Bunyan and Balfour of 
Burley — of taking his great quarto Bible 
under his arm and pacing u^j and down the 
pulpit with it ; looking steadily down, mean- 
time, into the midst of the congregation. 
Thus, when he applied his text to the first 
assem]:)lage of his hearers, and pictured the 
wonder of the church at their presumption 
in forming a congregation among themselves, 
he stopi^ed short Avith his Bible under his 
arm in the manner I have described, and 
pursued his discourse after this manner : — 

" Who are these — who are they — who 
are these fellows ? where do they come from ? 
Where are they going to ? — Come from I 
What 's the answer '? " — leaning out of the 
puljiit, and pointing downward Avith his riglit 
hand : " From beloAv ! " — starting back 
again and looking at the sailors before him, 

— " from beloAv, my brethren. From under 
the hatches of sin, battened down above you 
by the evil one. That 's where you came 
from ! " — a Avalk up and doAvn the pulpit, 

— "and where are you going," — stopping 
abruptly, — " Avhere are you going ? Aloft ! " 

— very softly, and pointing upAvard ; 



fOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



35 



" aloft ! " — louder, — " aloft ! " — louder 
still, — " that 's where you are going, — with 
a fair wind, — all taut and trim, steering di- 
rect for Heaven in its glory, where there are 
no storms or foul weather, and where the 
■vvicked cease from troubling and the weary 
arc at rest." — Another walk: "That's 
where you 're going to, my friends. That 's 
it. That 's the place. That 's the port. That 's 
the haven. It's a blessed harbor, — still 
water there, in all changes of the winds and 
tides ; no driving ashore upon the rocks, 
or slipping your cables and running out to 
sea, there : Peace — Peace — Peace — all 
peace ! " — Another walk, and patting the 
Bible under his left arm : " What ! These 
fellows are coming from the wilderness, are 
they ? Yes. From the dreary blighted wil- 
derness of Iniquity, whose only crop is 
Death. But do they lean upon anything, — 
do they lean upon nothing, these poor sea- 
men ? " — Three raps upon the Bible, — 
" O yes. — Yes. — They lean upon the arm 
of their Beloved " — three moi-e raps, — 
"upon the arm of their Beloved" — three 
more, and a walk : " Pilot, guiding-star, and 
compass, all in one, to all hands — here it is " 
— three more : " Here it is. They can do 
their seaman's duty manfully, and be easy 
in their minds in the utmost peril and dan- 
ger, with this " — two more : " They can 
come, even these poor fellows can come, from 
the wilderness leaning on the arm of their 
Beloved, and go up — ■ up — up ! " — raising 
his hand higher and higher, at every repeti- 
tion of the word, so that he stood with it at 
last stretched above his head, regarding them 
m a strange, rapt manner, and pressmg the 
book triumphantly to his breast, until he 
gradually subsided into some other portion 
of his discourse. 

I have cited this, rather as an instance of 
the preacher's eccentricities than his merits, 
though, taken in connection with his look 
and manner, and the character of his audi- 
ence, even this was striking. It is possible, 
however, that my favorable impression of 
him may have been greatly influenced and 
strengthened, firstly, by his impressing up- 
on his hearers that the true observance of 
religion was not inconsistent with a cheer- 
ful deportment and an exact discharge of 
the duties of their station, which, indeed, it 
scrupulously required of them; and second- 
ly, by his cautioning them not to set up any 
monopoly in Paradise and its mercies. I 
never heard these two points so wisely 
touched (If indeed I have ever heard them 
touched at all) by any preacher of that 
kind, before. 



Having passed the time I spent in Bos- 
ton in making myself acquainted with these 
things, in settling the course I should take 
in my future travels, and in mixing con- 
stantly with its society, I am not aware 
that I have any occasion to prolong this 
chapter. Such of its social customs as I 
have not mentioned, however, may be told 
in a very few words. 

The usual dinner-hour is two o'clock. A 
dinner-party takes place at five ; and at an 
evening party they seldom sup later than 
eleven; so that it goes hard but one gets 
home, even from a rout, by midnight. I 
never could find out any difference between 
a party at Boston and a party in London, 
saving that at the former place all assem- 
blies are held at more rational hours ; that 
the conversation may possibly be a little 
louder and more cheerful ; that a guest is 
usually expected to ascend to the very top 
of the house to take his cloak ofi"; that he 
is certain to see, at every dinner, an un- 
usual amount of poultry on the table ; and 
at every supper, at least two njighty bowls 
of hot stewed 03-sters, in any one of which 
a half-grown Duke of Clarence might be 
smothered easily. 

There are two theatres in Boston, of good 
size and construction, but sadly in want of 
patronage. The few ladies who resort to 
them sit, as of right, in the front rows of 
the boxes. 

The bar is a large room with a stone 
floor, and there people stand and smoke, 
and lounge about, all the evening, drop- 
ping in and out as the humor takes them. 
There too the stranger is initiated into the 
mysteries of Gin-sling, Cocktail, Sangaree, 
Mint Julep, Sherry-cobbler, Timber Doo- 
dle, and other rare drinks. The House is 
full of boarders, both married and single, 
many of whom sleep upon the premises, and 
conti-act by the week for their board and 
lodging;. the charge for which diminishes 
as they go nearer the sky to roost. A pub- 
lic table is laid in a very handsome hall for 
breakfast, and for dinner, and for supper. 
The party sitting down together to these 
meals will vary in number from one to two 
hundred ; sometimes more. The advent of 
each of these epochs in the day is pro- 
claimed by an awful gong, which shakes 
the very window-frames as it reverberates 
through the house, and horribly disturbs 
nervous foreigners. There is an ordinary 
for ladies, and an ordinary for gentlemen. 

In our private room the cloth could not, 
for any earthly consideration, have been 



36 



AMERICAN NOTES 



cranberries in the middle of the table ; and 
breakfast would have been no breakfast un- 
less the principal dish were a dclbrmed 
beefsteak with a great flat bone in the cen- 
tre, swimming in hot butter, and sprinkled 
with the very blackest of all possible pep- 
per. Our bedroom was spacious and airy, 
but (like every bedroom on this side of the 
Atlantic) very bare of furniture, having no 
curtains to the French bedstead or to the 
window. It had one unusual luxury, how- 
ever, in the shape of a wardrobe of painted 
wood, something smaller than an English 
watch-box : or, if this comparison should be 
insufficient to convey a just Idea of Its di- 
mensions, they may be estimated from the 
fact of my having lived for fourteen days 
and nights In the firm belief that it was a 
shower-bath. 



CHAPTER IV. 

AN AMERICAX RAILROAD. LOWELL AND 
ITS FACTORY SYSTEM. 

Before leaving Boston I devoted one 
day to an excursion to Lowell. I assign a 
separate chapter to this visit ; not because I 
am about to describe it at any great length, 
but because I remember it as a thing by It- 
self, and am desirous that my readers should 
do the same. 

I made acquaintance with an American 
railroad, on this occasion, for the first time. 
As these works are pretty much alike all 
through the States, their general character- 
istics are easily described. 

There are no first and second class car- 
riages as with us ; but there Is a gentlemen's 
car and a ladies' car, — the main distinction 
between which is, that in the first everybody 
smokes, and In the second nobody does. As 
a black man never travels with a white one, 
there is also a negro car ; which Is a great 
blundering clumsy chest, such as Gulliver 
put to sea In from the kingdom of Brobdlng- 
nag. There is a great deal of jolting, a 
great deal of noise, a gi'cat deal of wall, not 
much window, a locomotive engine, a shriek, 
and a bell. 

The cai-s are like shabby omnibuses, but 
larger; holding thirty, forty, fifty people. 
The seats. Instead of stretching from end to 
end, are placed crosswise. Each seat holds 
two persons. There is a long row of them 
on each side of the caravan, a narrow pas- 
sage up the middle, and a door at both 
ends. In the centre of the carriage there 
is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or an- 



thracite coal, which Is for the most part red- 
hot. It is insuUerably close ; and j-ou see 
the hot air fluttering between yourself and 
any other object you may happen to look at, 
like the ghost of smoke. 

In the ladles' car there are a great many 
gentlemen who have ladles with them. 
There are also a great many ladies who 
have nobody with them ; for any lady may 
travel alone, from one end of the United 
States to the other, and be certain of the 
most courteous and considerate treatment 
everywhere. Tlie conductor or check-taker, 
or guard, or Avhatevcr he may be, wears 
no uniform. He walks up and down the 
car, and in and out of it, as his fancy dic- 
tates ; leans against the door with his hands 
In his pockets and stares at you, if you 
chance to be a stranger ; or enters Into con- 
versation with the passengers about him. A 
great many ncwsjiapers are pulled out, and 
a few of them are read. Everybody talks 
to you, or to anybody else who hits his fan- 
cy. If you are an Englishman, he expects 
that that railroad Is pretty much like an 
English railroad. If you say, " No," he 
says, " Yes ? " (Interrogatively) and asks in 
what respect they dlfler. You enumerate 
the heads of difference, one by one ; and he 
says, " Yes V " (still interrogatively) to each. 
Then he guesses that you don't travel faster 
In England ; and on your replying that you 
do, says, " Yes ? " again (still Interrogative- 
ly), and. It Is quite evident, don't believe it. 
After a long pause he remarks, partly to 
you and partly to the knob on the top of 
his stick, that " Yankees are reckoned to be 
considerable of a go-ahead people too " ; up- 
on which you say, " Yes," and then he says, 
" Yes," again (affirmatively this time) ; and, 
upon your looking out of window, tells you 
that behind that hill, and some three miles 
from the next station, there is a clever town 
In a smart lo-ca-tion, where he expects you 
have con-eluded to stop. Your answer in 
the negative naturally leads to more ques- 
tions In reference to your intended route (al- 
ways pronounced rout) ; and, wherever you 
are going, you Invariably learn that you 
can't get there without immense dKficulty 
and danger, and that all the great sights are 
somewhere else. 

If a lady take a fancy to any male pas- 
sengei-'s seat, the gentleman who accom- 
panies her gives him notice of the fact, and 
he Immediately vacates It with great polite- 
ness. Politics are much discussed, so are 
banks, so Is cotton. Quiet people avoid the 
question of the Presidency, for there will be 
a new election In three years and a half, 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



and party feeling runs very high ; the great 
constitutional feature of this institution be- 
ing, that directly the acrimony of the last 
election is over, the acrimony of the next 
one begins ; which is an unspeakable com- 
fort to all strong politicians and true lovers 
of their country, — that is to say, to ninety- 
nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine 
and a quarter. 

Except when a branch road joins the 
main one, there is seldom more than one 
track of rails ; so that the road is very nar- 
row, and the view, where there is a deep 
cutting, by no means extensive. When 
there is not, the character of the sceneiy is 
always the same. Mile after mile of stunt- 
ed trees, some hewn down by the axe, some 
blown down by the wind, some half fallen 
and resting on their neighbors, many mere 
logs half hidden in the swamp, others 
mouldered away to spongy chips. The 
very soil of the earth is made up of minute 
fragments such as these ; each pool of stag- 
nant water has its crust of vegetable rotten- 
ness; on every side there are the boughs 
and trunks and stumps of trees, in every 
possible stage of decay, decomposition, and 
neglect. Now you emerge for a few brief 
minutes on an open country, glittering with 
some bright lake or pool, broad as many an 
English river, but so small here that it 
scarcely has a name ; now catch hasty 
glimpses of a distant town, with its clean 
white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim 
Nejv England church and school-house ; 
when whir-r-r-r! almost before you have 
seen them, comes the same dark screen, the 
stunted trees, the stumps, the logs, the 
stagnant water, — all so like the last that 
you seem to have been transported back 
again by magic. 

The train calls at stations in the woods, 
where the wild impossibility of anybody 
having the smallest reason to get out is 
only to be equalled by the apparently des- 
perate hopelessness of there being anybody 
to get in. It rushes ^ across the turnpike 
road, where there is no gate, no policeman, 
no signal, nothing but a rough wooden arch, 
on which is painted, " When the bell 

RIXGS, LOOK OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE." 

On it whirls headlong, dives through the 
woods again, emerges in the light, clatters 
over frail arches, rumbles upon the heavy 
ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge 
which intercepts the light for a second like 
a wink, suddenly awakens all tlie slumbering 
echoes in the main street of a large town, 
and dashes on hap-hazard, pell-mell, neck 
or nothing, down the middle of the road. 



There — with mechanics working at their 
trades, and peojile leaning from their doors 
and windows, and boys flying kites and 
playing marbles, and men smoking, and 
women talking, and children crawling, and 
pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses 
plunging and rearing, close to the very 
rails — there — on, on, on — tears the mad 
dragon of an engine with its train of cars ; 
scattering in all directions a shower of burn- 
ing sparks from its wood fire ; screeching, 
hissing, yelling, panting; until at last the 
thirsty monster stops beneath a covered 
way to drink, the people cluster round, and 
you have time to breathe again. 

I was met at the station at Lowell by a 
gentleman intimately connected with the 
management of the factories there ; and, 
gladly putting myself under his guidance, 
drove otf at once to that quarter of the town 
in which the works, the object of my visit, 
were situated. Although only just of age, — 
for, if my recollection serve me, it has been a 
manufacturing town barely one-and-twenty 
years, — Lowell is a large, populous, thriving 
place. Those indications of its youth which 
first attract the eye give it a quaintness and 
oddity of character which, to a visitor from 
the old country, is amusing enough. It 
was a very dirty winter's day, and nothing 
in the whole town looked old to me, except 
the mud, which in some parts was almost 
knee-deep, and might have been depos- 
ited there on the subsiding of the waters 
after the Deluge. In one place there was 
a new wooden church, which having no 
steeple, and being yet unpainted, looked 
like an enormous packing-case without any 
direction upon it. In another there was a 
large hotel, whose walls and colonnades 
were so crisp, and thin, and slight, that it 
had exactly the appearance of being built 
with cards. I was careful not to draw my 
breath as we passed, and trembled when I 
saw a workman come out upon the roof, 
lest, with one thoughtless stamp of his foot, 
he should crush the structure beneath him, 
and bring it rattling down. The very river 
that moves the machinery in the mills (for 
they are all worked by water power) seems 
to acquire a new character from the fresh 
buildings of bright red brick and painted 
wood among which it takes its course ; and 
to be as light-headed, thoughtless, and brisk 
a young river, in its murmurings and tum- 
blings, as one would desire to see. One 
would swear that every " Bakery," " Gro- 
cery," and " Book-bindery," and other kind 
of store, took its shutters down for the first 
time and started in business yesterday. 



38 



AMERICAN NOTES 



The golden pestles .ind mortars fixed as 
signs upon the sun-blind frames outside the 
Druggists' appear to liave been just turned 
out of the United States Mint; and -when 
I sav;^ a baby of some week or ten da}-s old 
in a woman's arms at a street corner, 
I found myself unconsciously Avondering 
where It came from ; never supposing for 
an instant that it could have bt'cn born in 
sucli a young town as that. 

There are several factories in Lowell, 
each of which belongs to what we should 
term a Company of Proprietors, but what 
they call in America a Corporation. I 
went over several of these, — such as a 
woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a 
cotton factory, examined them in every 
part, and saw them in their ordinary work- 
ing aspect, with no prepiration of any kind, 
or departure from their ordinary cvery-day 
proceedings. I may add that I am well ac- 
quainted with our manufacturing towns in 
England, and have visited many mills in 
Manchester and elsewhere in the same 
manner. 

I happened to arrive at the first factory 
just as the dinner-hour was over, and the 
girls were returning to their work ; indeed, 
the stairs of the mill were thronged with 
them as I ascended. They were all well 
dressed, but not, to my thinking, above 
their condition ; for I like to see the hum- 
bler classes of society careful of their dress 
and ajjpearance, and even, if they please, 
decorated Avith such little trinkets as come 
within the compass of their means. Sup- 
posing it confined within reasonable limits, 
I would always encom-age this kind of pride, 
as a worthy element of self-respect in any 
jierson I employed ; and should no more 
be deterred from doing so because some 
wretched female referred her fall to a love 
of dress, than I would allow my construc- 
tion of the real intent and meaning of the 
Sabbath to be influenced by any warning 
to the well-disposed, founded on his back- 
slidings on that particular daj', which might 
emanate from the rather doubtful authority 
of a murderer in Newgate. 

These girls, as I have said, were all well 
dressed ; and that phrase necessarily in- 
cludes extreme cleanliness. They had ser- 
viceable bonnets, good, warm cloaks and 
shawls, and were not above clogs and ])at- 
tens. JNIoreover, there were places in the 
mill in which they could deposit these things 
without injury; and there were conven- 
iences for Avashing. They were healthy in 
appearance, many of them remarkably so, 
and had the manners and deportment of 



young women, not of degraded brutes of 
burden. If I had seen in one of those mills 
(but I did not, though I looked for some- 
thing of this kind Avith a sharp eye') the 
most lisping, mincing, affected, and ridicu- 
lous young creature that my imagination 
could suggest, I should have thought of the 
careless, moping, slatternly, degraded, dull 
reverse (I liave seen that), and should 
ha\-e been still well pleased to look upon 
her. 

The rooms in which they worked were 
as Avell ordered as themselves. In the win- 
dows of some there were green j^lants Avhich 
were trained to shade the glass ; in all there 
AA'as as much fresh air, cleanliness, and com- 
fort as the nature of the occupation would 
possibly admit of Out of so large a num- 
ber of females, many of whom Avere only 
then just verging upon womanhood, it may 
be reasonably supposed that some were deli- 
cate and fragile in appearance ; no doubt 
there were. But I solemnly declare, that 
from all the croAvd I saw in the different 
factories that day, I cannot recall or sejia- 
rate one young face that gave me a painful 
im2:)ression ; not one young girl Avhom, as- 
suming it to be matter of necessity that she 
should gain her daily bread by the labor of 
her hands, I would have removed from 
those works if I had had the power. 

They reside in various boarding-houses 
near at hand. The OAvners of the mills are 
particularly cai'efiil to allow no persons to 
enter upon the possession of these houses 
Avhose characters have not undergone the 
most searching and thorough inquiry. Any 
complaint that is made against them by the 
boarders, or by any one else, is fully in- 
A-estlgated ; and if good ground of com- 
2)laiut be shown to exist agauist them, they 
are removed, and their occujiation is handed 
over to some more deserving ])erson. There 
are a few children employed in these fac- 
tories, but not many. The laAvs of the 
State forbid their working more tlian nine 
months in the year, and require that they 
be educated during the other three. For 
this purpose there are schools in Lowell; 
and there are churches and chapels of 
various persuasions, in which the young 
women may observe that form of worship 
in Avhich they have been educated. 

At some distance from the factories, and 
on the highest and pleasantest ground in 
the neighborhood, stands their hospital, or 
boarding-house for the sick. It is the best 
house in those parts, and was built by an 
eminent merchant for his own residence. 
Like that institution at Boston Avhich I 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



39 



have before described, it is not parcelled 
out into wards, but is divided into con- 
venient chambers, each of which has all the 
comforts of a very comfortable home. The 
principal medical attendant resides under 
the same roof; and were the patients mem- 
bers of his own family, they could not be 
better cared for, or attended with greater 
gentleness and consideration. The weekly 
charge in this establishment for each female 
patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings 
English ; but no girl employed by any of 
the corporations is ever excluded for want 
of the means of payment. That they do 
not very often want the means may be 
gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, 
no fewer than nine hundred and seventy- 
eight of these girls were depositors in the 
Lowell Savings Bank ; the amount of whose 
joint savings was estimated at one hundred 
thousand dollars, or twenty thousand Eng- 
lish pounds. 

I am now going to state three facts 
which will startle a large class of readers 
on "this side of the Atlantic very much. 

Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in 
a great many of the boarding-houses. 
Secondly, nearly all these young ladies 
subscribe to circulating libraries. Thirdly, 
they have got up among themselves a peri- 
odical called The Lowell Offering," A 
repository of original articles written ex- 
clusively by females actively employed in 
the mills," — which is duly printed, pub- 
lished, and sold ; and whereof I brought 
' away from Lowell four hundred good solid 
pages, which I have read from beginning 
to end. 

The large class of readers startled by 
these flxcts will exclaim, with one voice, 
" How very preposterous!" On my defer- 
entially inquiring why, they will answer, 
" These things are above their station." 
In reply to that objection, I would beg to 
ask what their station is. 

It is tlieir station to work. And they do 
work. They labor in these mills, upon an 
average, twelve hours a day, which is un- 
questionably work, and pretty tight work 
too. Perhaps it is above their station to 
indulge in such amusements on any terms. 
Are we quite sure that we in England have 
not formed our ideas of the " station " of 
working people from accustoming ourselves 
to the contemplation of that class as they 
are, and not as they might be ? I think 
that if we examine our own feelings, we 
shall find that the pianos, and the cir- 
culating libraries, and even the Lowell 
Offering, startle us by their novelty, and 



not by their beax-ing upon any abstract 
question of right or wrong. 

For myself, I know no station in which, 
the occupation of to-day cheerfully done, 
and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully 
looked to, any one of these pursuits is not 
most humanizing and laudable. I know 
no station which is rendered more endurable 
to the person in it, or more safe to the pci-- 
son out of it, by having ignorance for its 
associate. I know no station which has a 
right to monopolize the means of mutual 
instruction, improvement, and rational en- 
tertainment, or which has ever continued 
to be a station very long, after seeking to 
do so. 

Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as 
a literary production I will only observe, 
putting entirely out of sight the fact of the 
articles ha-\-ing been written by these girls 
after the arduous labors of the day, that it 
will compare advantageously with a great 
many English Annuals. It is pleasant to 
find that many of its Talcs are of the Mills 
and of those who work in them, — that 
they inculcate habits of self-denial and con- 
tentment, and teach good doctrines of en- 
larged benevolence. A strong feeling for 
the beauties of nature, as displayed in the 
solitudes the writers have left at home, 
breathes through its pages like wholesome 
village air ; and, though a circulating libra- 
ry is a favorable school for the study of 
such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine 
clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine 
life. Some persons might object to the pa- 
pers being signed occasionally with rather 
fine names, but this is an American fashion. 
One of the provinces of the State Legisla- 
ture of Massachusetts is to alter ugly names 
into pretty ones, as the children improve 
upon the tastes of their parents. These 
changes costing little or nothing, scores of 
Mary Annes are solemnly converted into 
Bevelinas every session. 

It is said, that, on the occasion of a visit 
from General Jackson or General Harrison 
to this town (I forget which, but it is not 
to the purpose), he walked through three 
miles and a half of these young ladies, all 
dressed out with jiarasols and silk stockings. 
But as I am not aware that any worse con- 
sequence ensued than a sudden looking-up 
of all the parasols and silk stockings in 
the market, and perhaps the Bankrupt- 
cy of some speculative New-Englauder 
who bought them all up at any price, 
in expectation of a demand that never 
came, I set no great store by the circum- 
stance. 



AMERICAN NOTES 



In this brief account of Lowell, and in- 
adequate expression of the gratification it 
yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any 
foreigner to whom the condition of such 
people at home is a subject of interest and 
anxious speculation, I have carefully ab- 
stained from drawing a comparison between 
these factories and those of our own land. 
Many of the circumstances whose strong in- 
fluence has been at work for years in our 
manufacturing towns have not arisen here ; 
and there is no manufacturing population 
in Lowell, so to speak ; for these girls (often 
the daughters of small flxrmers) come from 
other States, remain a few years in the 
mills, and then go home for good. 

The contrast would be a strong one, for 
it would be between the Good and Evil, 
the living light and deepest shadow. I ab- 
stain from it, because I deem it just to do 
so. But I only the more earnestly adjure 
all those whose eyes may rest on these pa- 
ges to pause and reflect upon the difference 
between this town and those great haunts 
of desperate misery ; to call to mind, if 
they can, in the midst of party strife and 
squabble, the efforts that must be made to 
purge them of their suffering and danger ; 
and last, and foremost, to remember how 
the precious Time is rushing by. 

I returned at night by the same railroad 
and in the same kind of car. One of the 
passengers being exceedingly anxious to 
expound at great length to my companion 
(not to me, of course) the true princijiles 
on which books of travel in America should 
be written by Englishmen, I feigned to fall 
asleep. But glancing all the way out at 
window, from the corners of my eyes, I 
found abundance of entertainment for the 
rest of the ride in Avatching the effects of 
the wood fire, which had been invisible in 
the morning, but were now brought out in 
full relief by the darkness ; for we were 
travelling in a whirlwind of bright sparks, 
which showered about us like a storm of 
fiery snow. 



CHAPTER V. 

WORCESTER. THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. 
HARTFORD. NEW HAVEN. TO NEW 
YORK. 

Leaving Boston on the afternoon of Sat- 
urday, the fifth of February, we proceeded 
by another railroad to Worcester, a pretty 
New England town, where we had arranged 
to remain under the hospitable roof of the 



Governor of the State until Monday morn- 

/^These towns and cities of New England 
(many of which would be villages in Old 
England) are as favorable specimens of 
rural America as their people are of rural 
Americans. The well-trimmed lawns and 
green meadows of home are not there ; and 
the gra'SS, compared with our ornamental 
plots and pastures, is rank and rough and 
wild ; but delicate slopes of land, gently 
swelling hills, wooded valleys, and slender 
streams, abound. Every little colony of 
houses has its church and school-house peep- 
ing from among the white roofs and shady 
trees ; every house is the whitest of the 
white ; every Venetian blind the gi-eenest 
of the green ; every fine day's sky the blu- 
est of the blue. A sharp dry wind and a 
slight frost had so hardened the roads when 
we alighted at Worcester, that their fur- 
rowed tracks were like ridges of granite. 
There was the usual aspect of newness on 
every object, of course. All the buildings 
looked as if they had been built and painted 
that morning, and could be taken down on 
Monday with very little trouble. In the 
keen evening air every sharp outline looked 
a hundred times sharper than ever. The 
clean card-board colonnades had no more 
perspective than a Chinese bridge on a tea- 
cup, and appeared equally well calculated 
for use. The razor-like edges of the de- 
tached cottages seemed to cut the very 
wind as it whistled against them, and to 
send it smarting on its way with a shriller 
cry than before. Those slightly Iniilt wood- 
en dwellings behind which the sun was set- 
ting with a brilliant lustre could be so looked 
through and through, that the idea of any 
inhabitant being able to hide himself from 
the public gaze, or to have any secrets from 
the public eye, was not entertainable for a 
moment. Even where a blazing fire shone 
through the uncurtained windows of some 
distant house, it had the air of being newly 
lighted, and of lacking warmth ; and, instead 
of awakening thoughts of a snug chamber, 
bright with faces that first saw the li^ht 
round that same hearth, and ruddy with> 
warm hangings, it came upon one suggestive 
of the smell of new mortar and damp wall^ 
So I thought, at least, that evening. 
Next morning when the sun was shining 
brightly, and the clear church-bells were 
ringing, and sedate people in their best 
clothes enlivened the pathway near at hand, 
and dotted the distant thread of road, there 
was a pleasant Sabbath peacefulness on 
everything, which it was good to feel. It 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



41 



would have been the better for an old 
church ; better still for some old graves ; 
but, as it was, a wholesome repose and 
tranquillity pervaded the scene, which, af- 
ter the restless ocean and the hurried city, 
had a doubly grateful influence on the spir- 
its. 

We went on next morning, still by rail- 
road, to Springfield. From that place to 
Hartford, whither we were bound, is a dis- 
tance of only five-and-twenty miles, but at 
that time of the year the roads were so bad 
that the journey would jirobably have occu- 
pied ten or twelve hours. Fortunately, 
however, the winter having been unusually 
mild, the Connecticut River was " open," 
or, in other words, not frozen. The captain 
of a small steamboat was going to make his 
first trip for the season that day (the second 
February trip, I believe, within the memory 
of man), and only waited for us to go on 
board. Accordingly we went on board, 
with as little delay as might be. He was as 
good as his word, and started directly. 

It certainly was not called a small steam- 
boat without i-eason. I omitted to ask the 
question, but I should think it must have 
been of about half a pony power. Mr. 
Paap, the celebrated Dwarf, might have 
lived and died happily in the cabin, which 
was fitted witli common sash-windows like 
an ordinary dwelling-house. These windows 
had bright red curtains, too, hung on slack 
strings across the lower panes ; so that It 
looked like the parlor of a Llliputian pub- 
lic-house, which had got afloat in a flood or 

I some other water accident, and was drifting 
nobody knew where. But even in this 
chamber there v/as a rocking-chair. It 
would be Impossible to get on anywhere, in 
America, without a rocking-chair. 

1 am afraid to tell how many feet short 
this vessel was, or how many feet narrow ; 
to apply the words length and width to such 
measurement would be a contradiction in 
terms. But I may state that we all kept 
the middle of the deck, lest the boat should 
unexpectedly tip over ; and that the ma- 
chinery, by some surprising process of con- 
densation, worked between it and the keel ; 
the whole forming a warm sandwich, about 

I three feet thick. 

It rained all day as I once thought it 
never did rain anywhere but in the High- 
lands of Scotland. The river was full of 

I floating blocks of ice, which were constant- 
ly crunching and cracking under us ; and 

i the depth of water, in the course we took 
to avoid the larger masses, carried down 
the middle of the river by the current, did 



not exceed a few inches. Nevertheless, we 
moved onward dexterously ; and, being 
well wrapped up, bade defiance to the 
weather, and enjoyed the journey. The 
Connecticut River Is a fine stream ; and 
the banks in summer-time are, I have no 
doubt, beautiful ; at all events I was told 
so by a young lady in the cabin ; and she 
should be a judge of beauty, if the posses- 
sion of a c[uality include the appreciation 
of it, for a more beautiful creature I never 
looked upon. 

After two hours and a half of this odd 
travelling (Including a stoppage at a small 
town, where we were saluted by a gun con- 
siderably bigger than our own chimney), 
we reached Hartford, and straightway re- 
paired to an extremely comfortable hotel, 
except, as usual. In the article of bedrooms, 
which, in almost every place we visited, 
were very conducive to early rising. 

We tarried here four days. The town is 
beautifully situated in a basin of green 
hills ; the soil is rich, well wooded, and 
carefully improved. It is the seat of the 
local legislature of Connecticut, which sage 
body enacted, in bygone times, the re- 
nowned code of " Blue Laws," in virtue 
whereof, among other enlightened provis- 
ions, any citizen who could be proved to 
have kissed his wife on Sunday was punish- 
able, I believe, with the stocks. Too much 
of the old Puritan spirit exists in these parts 
to the present hour ; but its Influence has 
not tended, that I know, to make the peo- 
ple less hard in their bargains, or more 
equal in their dealings. As I never heard 
of its working that effect anywhere else, I 
infer that it never will here. Indeed, I am 
accustomed, with reference to great profes- 
sions and severe faces, to judge of the goods 
of the other world pretty much as I judge 
of the goods of this ; and whenever I see a 
dealer in such commodities with too great a 
display of them In his window, I doubt the 
quality of the article within. 

In Hartford stands the famous oak in 
which the charter of King Charles was 
hidden. It is now enclosed in a gentle- 
man's garden. In the State House is the 
charter Itself. I found the courts of law 
here just the same as at Boston ; the public 
Institutions almost as good. The Insane 
Asylum is admirably conducted, and so is 
the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. 

I very much questioned within myself, 
as I walked through the Insane Asylum, 
whether I should have known the attend- 
ants from the patients, but for the few 
words which passed between the former 



42 



AMERICAN NOTES 



and the Doctor, in reference to the persons 
under their charge. Of course I limit this 
remark merely to their looks ; for the con- 
versation of the mad people was mad 
enough. 

There was one little prim old lady, of 
very smiling and good-humored appearance, 
who came sidling up to me from the end of 
a long passage, and, with a courtesy of in- 
expressible condescension, propounded this 
unaccountable inquiry, — 

" Does Pontefract still llourish, sir, upon 
the soil of England ? " 

" lie does, ma'am," I rejoined. 

*' When you last saw him, sir, he was — " 

" "Well, iua'am," said I, " extremely well. 
He begged me to present his compliments. 
I never saw him looking better." 

At this the old lady was very much de- 
lighted. After glancing at me for a mo- 
ment, as if to be (^uite sure that I was seri- 
ous in my respectful air, she sidled back 
some paces, sidled forward again, made a 
sudden skip (at which I precipitately re- 
treated a step or two) ; and said, — 

" / am an antediluvian, sir." 

I thought the best thing to say was, that 
I had suspected as much from the first. 
Therefore I said so. 

" It is an extremely proud and pleasant 
thing, sir, to be an antediluvian," said the 
old lady. 

" I should think it was, ma'am," I re- 
joined. 

The old lady kissed her hand, gave an- 
other skip, smirked and sidled down the 
gallery in a most extraordinary manner, 
and ambled gracefully into her own bed- 
chamber. 

In another part of the building there was 
a male patient in bed, very much flushed 
and heated. 

" Well ! " said he, starting up and pull- 
ing off his nightcap ; " it 's all settled, at 
last. I have arranged it with Queen Vic- 
toria." 

" Arranged what ? " asked the Doctor. 

" Why, that business," passing his hand 
wearily across his forehead, " about the 
siege of New York." 

" Oh ! " said I, like a man suddenly en- 
lightened. For he looked at me for an 
answer. 

" Yes. Every house without a signal will 
be fired upon by the British troops. No 
harm will be done to the others. No harm 
at all. Those that want to be saved must 
lioist flags. That 's all they '11 have to do. 
They must hoist flags." 

Even while he was speaking he seemed, I 



thought, to have some faint idea that his 
talk was incoherent. Directly he had said 
these words, he lay down again, gave a 
kind of a groan, and covered his hot head 
with the blankets. 

There was another, a young man whose 
madness was love and music. After play- 
ing on the accordion a march he had com- 
posed, he was very anxious that I should 
walk into his chamber, which I immediately 
did. 

By way of being very knowing, and 
humoring him to the top of his bent, I went 
to the window, which commanded a beauti- 
ful prospect, and remarked with an address 
upon which I gi-eatly plumed myself, — 

" What a delicious country you have 
about these lodgings of yours." 

" Poll ! " said he, moving his fingers care- 
lessly over the notes of his instrument: 
" u-ell enough for such an Institution as 
this!" 

I don't think I was ever so taken aback 
in all my life. 

" I come here just for a whim," he said 
coolly. "That's all." 

" Oh ! That 's all ! " said I. 

" Yes. That 's all. The Doctor 's a 
smart man. He quite enters into it. It 's 
a joke of mine. I like it for a time. You 
need n't mention it, but I think I shall go 
out next Tuesday ! " 

I assured him that I would consider our 
interview perfectly confidential, and re- 
joined the Doctor. As we were passing 
through a gallery on our way out, a well- 
dressed lady, of quiet and composed man- 
ners, came up, and, jn-offering a slip of paper 
and a pen, begged that I would oblige her 
with an autograph. I complied, and we 
parted. 

" I think I remember having had a few 
intei'views like that with ladies out of doors. 
I ho])e she is not mad V " 

" Yes." 

" On what subject ? Autographs ? " 

" No. She hears voices in the air." 

" AVell ! " thought I, " it Avould be well if 
we could -shut up a few fixlse pro])hets of 
these later times, who have professed to do 
the same ; and I should like to try the ex- 
periment on a Mormonist or two to begin 
with." 

In this place there is the best Jail for un- 
tried offenders in the world. There is also 
a very well-ordered State prison, arranged 
upon the same plan as that at Boston, except 
that here there is always a sentry on the 
wall with a loaded gun. It contained at 
that time about two hundred jjrisoners. A 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



spot was shown me in the sleeping-ward 
Avhere a watchman was murdered some 
years since in the dead of night, in a 
desperate attempt to escape made by a 
prisoner who had broken from his cell. A 
woman, too, was pointed out to me, who, 
for the murder of her husband, had been a 
close prisoner for sixteen years. 

" Do you think," I asked of my conduc- 
tor, " that, after so very long an imprison- 
ment, she has any thought or hope of ever 
regaining her liberty ? " 

" O dear, yes," he ansv-^ered. " To be 
sure she has." 

" She has no chance of obtaining it, I 
suppose ? " 

" Well, I don't know " ; which, by the by, 
is a national answer. " Her friends mis- 
trust her." 

" What have they to do with it ? " I nat- 
urally inquired. 

" AVell, they won't petition." 
"But if they did, they couldn't get her 
out, I suppose V " 

" Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor 
yet the second, but tiring and wearying for 
a few years might do it." 
" Does that ever do it ? " 
" Why, yes, that '11 do it sometimes. Po- 
litical friends '11 do it sometimes. It 's pretty 
often done, one way or another." 

I shall always entertain a very pleasant 
and grateful recollection of Hartford. It is 
a lovely place, and I had many friends there 
whom I can never rememl)er with indiffer- 
ence. We left it with no little regret on 
the evening of Friday the 11th, and trav- 
elled that night by railroad to iSTew Haven. 
Upon the way the guard and I were for- 
mally introduced to each other (as we 
usually were on such occasions), and ex- 
changed a variety of small-talk. We 
reached New Haven at about eight o'clock, 
after a journey of three hours, and put up 
for the night at the best inn. 

New Haven, known also as the City of 
Elms, is a fine town. Many of its streets 
(as its alias sufficiently imports) are planted 
with rows of grand old elm-trees ; and the 
same natural ornaments surround Yale Col- 
lege, an establishment of considerable emi- 
nence and reputation. The various depart- 
ments of this Institution are erected in a 
kind of park or common in the middle of 
the town, where they are dimly visible 
among the shadowing trees. The effect is 
very like that of an old cathedral yard in 
England, and, when their branches are in 
full leaf, must be extremely picturesque. 
Even in the winter-time, these groups of 



well-grown trees, clustering among the busy 
streets and houses of a thriving city, have a 
very quaint appearance, seeming to bring 
about a kind of compromise between town 
and country, as if each had met the other 
half-way, and shaken hands upon it, which 
is at once novel and pleasant. 

After a night's rest we rose early, and in 
good time went down to the wharf, and on 
board the packet New York /o?' New York. 
This was the first American steamboat of 
any size that I had seen ; and certainly to 
an EngHsh eye it was infinitely less like a 
steamboat than a huge floating bath. I 
could hardly persuade myself, indeed, but 
that the, bathing establishment off Westmin- 
ster Bridge, which I left a baby, had sud- 
denly grown to an enormous size, run away 
from home, and set up in foreign parts as a 
steamer. Being in America, too, which 
our vagabonds do so particularly favor, it 
seemed the more probable. 

The great difference in appearance be- 
tween these packets and ours is that there 
is so much of them out of the water ; the 
main-deck being enclosed on all sides, and 
filled with casks and goods, like any second 
or third floor in a stack of warehouses, and 
the promenade or hurricane deck being atop 
of that again. A part of the machinery is 
always above this deck, where the connect- 
ing-rod, in a strong and lofty frame, is seen 
working away like an iron top-sawyer. 
There is seldom any mast or tackle ; noth- 
ing aloft but two tall black chimneys. The 
man at the helm is shut up in a little house 
in the forepart of the boat (the wheel being 
connected with the rudder by iron chains 
working the whole length of the deck), and 
the passengers, unless the weather be very 
fine indeed, usually congregate below. Di- 
rectly you have left the wharf, all the life, 
and stir, and bustle of a packet cease. You 
wonder for a long time how she goes on, 
for there seems to be nobody in charge of 
her ; and when another of these dull ma- 
chines comes splashing by, you feel quite 
indignant with it as a sullen, cumbrous, un- 
graceful, unshiplike leviathan, quite forget- 
ting that the vessel you are on board of is 
its very counterpart. 

There is always a clerk's office on the 
lower deck where you pay your fare ; a la- 
dies' cabin, baggage and stowage rooms, 
engineer's room, and, in short, a great vari- 
ety of perplexities which render the discov- 
ery of the gentlemen's cabin a matter of 
some difficulty. It often occupies the Avhole 
length of the boat (as it did in this case), 
and has three or four tiers of berths on each 



44 



AMERICAN NOTES 



side. When I first descended into the cab- 
in of the New York, it looked, in my unac- 
customed eyes, about as long as the Burling- 
ton Arcade. 

The Sound which has to be crossed on 
this passage is not always a verj-- safe or 
l)leasant navigation, and has been the scene 
of some unfortunate accidents. It was a 
wet morning and very misty, and we soon 
lost sight of land. The day was calm, how- 
ever, and briglitened towards noon. After 
exliausting (with good help from a friend) 
the larder and the stock of bottled beer, I 
lay down to sleep, being very much tired 
with the fatigues of yesterday. But I 
awoke from my nap in time to hurry up 
and see Hell Gate, the Hog's Back, the 
Frying Pan, and other notorious localities 
attractive to all readers of famous Diedrich 
Knickerbocker's History. We were now 
in a narrow channel, with sloping banks on 
either side besprinkled with pleasant villas, 
and made refreshing to the sight by turf 
and trees. Soon we shot in quick succes- 
sion past a light-house, a madhouse, (how 
the lunatics flung uji their caps and roared 
in sympathy with the headlong engine and 
the driving tide !) a jail, and other build- 
ings, and so emerged into a noble bay, 
whose waters sparkled in the now cloudless 
sunshine, like Nature's eyes turned up to 
Heaven. 

Then there lay stretched out before us 
to the right confused heaps of buildings, 
with here and there a spire or steeple, look- 
ing down upon the herd below ; and here 
and there again a cloud of lazy smoke ; and 
in the foreground a forest of ships' masts, 
cheery with flapping sails and waving ilags. 
Crossing from among them to the opposite 
shore were steam lerry-boats laden with 
people, coaches, horses, wagons, baskets, 
boxes ; crossed and recrossed by other ferry- 
boats ; all travelling to and fro, and never 
idle. Stately among these restless Insects 
were two or three large ships moving with 
slow, majestic pace, as creatures of a proud- 
er kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, 
and making for the broad sea. Beyond 
were shining heights, and islands in the 
glancing river, and a distance scarcely less 
blue and bright than the sky it seemed to 
meet. The city's hum and buzz, the clink- 
ing of capstans, the ringing of bells, the 
barking of dogs, tlie clattering of wheels, 
tingled in the listening ear. All of which 
life and stir, coming across the stirring wa- 
ter, caught new life and animation from its 
free companionship; and, sympathizing 
with its buoyant spirits, glistened, as it 



seemed, in sport upon its surface, and 
hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the 
water high about her sides, and, floating 
her gallantly into the dock, flew off again 
to welcome other comers and speed before 
them to the busy port. 



CHAPTER YI. 



NEW YORK. 



The beautiful metropolis of America is 
by no means so clean a city as Boston, but 
many of its streets have the same charac- 
teristics ; except that the houses are not 
quite so fresh colored, the sign-boards are 
not quite so gaudy, the gilded letters not 
quite so golden, the bricks not quite so red, 
the stone not quite so white, the blinds and 
area railings not quite so green, the knobs 
and plates upon the street doors not quite 
so bright and twinkling. There are many 
by-streets, almost as neutral in clean colors, 
and positive in dirty ones, as by-streets in 
London ; and there is one quarter, com- 
monly called the Five Points, which, in 
respect of filth and wretchedness, may be 
safely backed against Seven Dials, or any 
other part of famed St. Giles's. 

The great promenade and thoroughfare, 
as most people know, is Broadway, — a wide 
and bustling street, which, from the Battery 
Gardens to its opposite termination in a 
country road, may be four miles long. Shall 
we sit down in an upper floor of the Carl- 
ton House Hotel (situated in the best part 
of this main artery of New York), and when 
we are tired of looking down upon the life 
below, sally forth arm in arm and mingle 
with the stream ? 

Warm weather! The sun strikes upon 
our heads at this open window as though its 
i-ays were concentrated through a burning- 
glass ; but the day is in its zenith, and the 
season an unusual one. Was there ever 
such a sunny street as this Broadway ! The 
pavement stones are polished with the tread 
of feet until they shine again; the red 
bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, 
hot kilns ; and the roofs of those omnibuses 
look as though, if water were poured on 
them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell 
like half-quenched fires. No stint of omni- 
buses here ! Half a dozen have gone by 
within as many minutes. Plenty of hack- 
ney cabs and coaches too ; gigs, phaetons, 
large-wheeled tilburies, and private car- 
riages, — rather of a clumsy make, and not 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



very different from the public vehicles, but 
built for the heavy roads beyond the city 
pavement. Negro coachmen and white ; in 
straw hats, black hats, white hats, glazed 
caps, fur caps ; in coats of drab, black, 
brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean 
and linen : and there, in that one instance 
(look while it passes, or it will be too late), 
in suits of livery. Some Southern republi- 
can that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and 
swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yon- 
der, where that jihae ton with the well-clipped 
pair of grays has stopped, — standing at 
their heads now, — is a Yorkshire groom, 
who has not been very long in these parts, 
and looks sorrowfully round for a compan- 
ion pair of top-boots, which he may traverse 
the city half a year without meeting. Heav- 
en save the ladles, how they di-ess ! We 
have seen more colors in these ten minutes 
than we should have seen elsewhere in as 
many days. What various parasols ! what 
rainbow silks and satins ! what pinking of 
thin stockings, and pinching of thin shoes, 
and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, 
and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods 
and linings ! The young gentlemen are 
fond, you see, of turning down their shirt- 
collars and cultivating their whiskers, espe- 
cially under the chm ; but they cannot 
approach the ladies in their dress or bear- 
ing, bein^, to say the truth, humanity of 
quite another sort. Byrons of the desk and 
counter, pass on, and let us see what kind 
of men those are beliind ye, — those two la- 
borers in holiday clothes, of whom one car- 
ries in his hand a crumpled scrap of paper 
from which he tries to spell out a hard name, 
while the other looks about for it on all the 
doors and windows. 

Irishmen both ! You might know them, 
if they were masked, by their long-tailed 
blue coats and bright buttons and their drab 
trousers, which they wear like men well used 
to working-dresses, who are easy in no oth- 
ers. It would be hard to keep your model 
republics going without the countrymen and 
countrywomen of those two laborers. For 
who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, 
and do- domestic work, and make canals and 
roads, and execute great lines of Internal 
Improvement! Irishmen both, and sorely 
puzzled, too, to find out what they seek. 
Let us go down and help them for the love 
of home and that spirit of liberty which ad- 
mits of honest service to honest men, and 
honest work for honest bread, no matter 
■what it be. 

That 's well ! We have got at the right 
address at last, though it is written in 



strange characters truly, and might have 
been scrawled with the blunt haudle of 
the spade the writer better knows the use 
of than a pen. Their way lies yonder, but 
what business takes them there ? They car- 
ry savings to hoard up? No. They are 
brothers, those men. One crossed the sea 
alone, and working very hard for one half- 
year, and living harder, saved funds enough 
to bring the other out. That done, they 
worked together side by side, contentedly 
sharing hard labor and hard hving for an- 
other term, and then their sisters came, and 
then another brother, and lastly their old 
mother. And what now ? AVhy, the poor 
old crone is restless in a strange land, and 
yearns to lay her bones, she says, among her 
people in the old graveyard at home ; and 
so they go to pay her j^i'^ssage back ; and 
God help her and them, and every simple 
heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem of 
their younger days, and have an altar-fire 
upon the cold hearth of their fathers. 

This narrow thoroughfare, baking and 
blistering in the sun, is Wall Street, the 
Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of 
New York. Many a rapid fortune has 
been made in this street, and many a no 
less rajiid ruin. Some of these very mer- 
chants whom you see hanging about here 
now have locked up money in their strong- 
boxes, like the man in the Arabian Nights, 
and, opening them again, have found but 
withered leaves. Below, here by the wa- 
ter-side, where the bowsprits of ships stretch 
across the footway, and almost thrust them- 
selves into the windows, lie the noble 
American vessels which have made their 
Packet Service the finest in the world. 
They have brought hither the foreigners 
who abound in all the streets ; not, perhajis, 
that there are more here than in other com- 
mercial cities, but elsewhere they have par- 
ticular haunts, and you must find them out ; 
here they pervade the town. 

We must cross Broadway again, gaining 
some refreshment fi-om the heat in the sight 
of the great blocks of clean ice which are 
being carried into shops and bar-rooms, and 
the pine-apples and watermelons profusely 
displayed for sale. Fine streets of spacious 
houses here, you see ! — Wall Street has 
furnished and dismantled many of them 
very often, — and here a deeji green leafy 
square. Be sure that is a hospitable house, 
with inmates to be affectionately remem- 
bered always, where they have the open 
door and pretty show of plants within, and 
where the child with laughing eyes Is peep- 
ing out of window at the little dog below. 



4G 



AMERICAN NOTES 



You wonder wliat may be the use of this 
tall lla<;staiF in the by -street, with something 
like Liberty's head-dress on its top ; so 
do I. But there is a passion for tall flag- 
staffs hereabout, and you may see its twin 
brother in five minutes, if you have a 
mind. 

Again across Broadway, and so — passing 
from the many-colored crowd and glittering 
shops — into another long main street, the 
Bowery. A railroad yonder, see, where 
two stout horses trot along, drawing a score 
or two of people and a great wooden ark, 
with ease. The stores are poorer here, the 
passengers less gay. Clothes ready-made 
and meat ready-cooked are to be bought in 
these parts ; and the lively whirl of car- 
riages is exchanged for the deep rumble of 
carts and wagons. These signs which are 
so plentiful, in shape like river buoys, or 
small balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, 
and dangling there, announce, as you may 
see by looking up, " Oysters in every 
Style." They tempt the hungry most at 
night, for then dull candles, glimmering in- 
side, illuminate these dainty words, and 
make the mouths of idlers water, as they 
read and linger. 

Wliat is this dismal-fronted pile of bas- 
tard Egyptian, like an enchanter's palace 
in a melodrama ? A famous prison, called 
The Tombs. Shall we go in ? 

So. A long narrow lofty building, stove- 
heated as usual, with four galleries, one 
above the other, going round it, and com- 
municating by stairs. Between the two 
sides of each gallery, and in its centre, a 
bridge, for the greater convenience of 
crossing. On each of these bridges sits a 
man, dozing or reading, or talkmg to an 
idle companion. On each tier are two op- 
posite rows of small iron doors. They look 
like furnace doors, but are cold and black, 
as though the fires within had all gone out. 
Some two or three are open, and women, 
with drooping heads bent down, are talking 
to the inmates. The whole is lighted by a 
skylight, but it is fast closed, and from the 
roof there dangle, limp and drooping, two 
useless windsalls. 

A man with keys appears, to show us 
round. A good-looking fellow, and, in his 
way, civil and obliging. 

" Are those black doors the cells ? " 

" Yes." 

" Arc they all full ? " 

" Well, they 're pretty nigh full, and that's 
a fiict, and no two ways about it." 

" Those at the bottom are unwholesome, 
surely V " 



" Why, we do only put colored people in 
'em. That 's the truth." 

" When do the ^jrisoners take exer- 
cise ? " 

" Well, they do without It pretty much." 
" Do they never walk in the yard ? " 
" Considerable seldom." 
" Sometimes, I suppose ? " 
" Well, it 's rare they do. They keep 
pretty bright without it." 

" But suppose a man were here for a 
twelvemonth. I know this is only a prison 
for criminals who are charged with grave 
offences while they are awaiting their trial, 
or are under remand, but the law here af- 
fords criminals many means of delay. What 
with motions for new trial, and in arrest of 
judgment, and what not, a prisoner might 
be here for twelve months, I take it, might 
he not ? " 

" Well, I guess he might." 
" Do you mean to say that in all that time 
he would never come out at that little iron 
door for exercise ? " 

" He might walk some, perhajis, — not 
much." 

" W^ill you open one of the doors ? " 
" All, if you Hke." 

The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of 
the doors turns slowly on its hinges. Let 
us look in. A small bare cell, into which 
the light enters through a high chink in the 
wall. There is a rude means of washing, a 
table, and a bedstead. Upon the latter sits 
a man of sixty, i-eadlng. lie looks up for a 
moment, gives an impatient, dogged shake, 
and fixes his eyes upon his book again. As 
we withdraw our heads, the door closes on 
him, and is fastened as before. This man 
has murdered his wife and will probably be 
hanged. 

" How long has he been here V " 
" A month." 

" When will he be tried ? " 
" Next term." 
"When is that?" 
" Next month." 

" In England, if a man be under sentence 
of death even, he has air and exercise at 
certain periods of the day." 

" Possible ? " ^ 

With what stupendous and untranslata- 
ble coolness he says this ! and how loung- 
ingly he leads on to the women's side, mak- 
ing, as he goes, a kind of Iron castanet of 
the key and the stair-rail ! 

Each cell door on this side has a square 
apei'ture in it. Some of the women peep 
anxiously through it at the sound of foot- 
steps ; others shrink away in shauic. For 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



what offence can tliat lonely child, of ten or 
twelve years old, be shut up here ? Oh ! 
that boy ? He is the son of the prisoner 
we saw just now; is a witness against his 
iixther ; and is detained here for safe-keep- 
ing, until the trial ; that 's all. 

But it is a dreadful place for the child to 
pass the long days and nights in. This is 
rather hard treatment for a young witness, 
is it not V — What says our conductor ? 

" Well, it ain't a very rowdy life, and 
that 's a flxct ! " 

Again he clinks h'ls metal Castanet, and 
leads us leisurely away. I have a question 
to ask him as we go. 

" Pray, why do they call this place The 
Tombs ? " 

" Well, it 's the cant name." 

" I know it is. Why '? " 

" Some suicides happened here when it 
was first built. I expect it come about from 
that." 

" I saw, just now, that that man's clothes 
were scattei-ed about the floor of his cell. 
Don't you oblige the prisoners to be order- 
ly, and put such things away ? " 

" Where should they put 'em ? " 

" Not on the ground, surely. What do 
you say to hanging them up V " 

He stops and looks round to emphasize 
his answer : — 

" Why, I say that 's just it. When they 
had hooks, they ivould hang themselves, so 
they 're taken out of every cell, and there 's 
only the marks left where they used to 
be!" _ _ _ ^ 

The prison-yard in which he pauses now 
has been the scene of terrible perlbrmances. 
Into this narrow, grave-like place men are 
brought out to die. The wretched creature 
stands beneath the gibbet on the ground, 
the rope about his neck ; and when the sign 
is given, a weight at Its other end comes 
running down, and swings him up into the 
air — a corpse. 

The law requires that there be present at 
this dismal spectacle the judge, the jury, 
and citizens to the amount of twenty-five. 
From the community It is hidden. To the 
dissolute and bad the thing remains a 
frightful mystery. Between the criminal 
and them the prison wall is interposed as a 
thick gloomy veil. It is the curtain to his 
bed of death, his winding-sheet and grave. 
From him it shuts out life and all the mo- 
tives to unrepenting hardihood In that last 
hour, which its mere sight and presence is 
often all-sulhclent to sustain. There are 
no bold eyes to make him bold, — no ruf- 
fians to upliold a ruffian's name before. All 



beyond the pitiless stone wall is unknown 
space. 

Let us go forth again Into the cheerful 
streets. 

Once more in Broadway ! Here are the 
same ladles in bright colors walking to and 
fro, in pairs and singly ; yonder the very 
same light blue parasol which passed and 
repassed the hotel window twenty times 
while we were sitting there. We are going 
to cross here. Take care of the pigs. Two 
portly sows are trotting up behind' this car- 
riage, and a select party of half a dozen 
gentlemen hogs have just now turned the 
corner. 

Here is a solitary swine lounging home- 
ward by himself He has only one ear, 
having parted with the other to vagrant 
dogs in the course of his city rambles. But 
he gets on very well without It, and leads a 
roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, 
somewhat answering to that of our club 
men at home. He leaves his lodgings every 
morning at a certain hour, throws himself 
upon the town, gets through his day in 
some manner quite satisfactory to himself, 
and regularly appears at the door of his 
own house again at night like the mysterious 
master of Gil Bias. He is a free-and-easy, 
careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a 
very large acquaintance among other 23lgs 
of the same character, whom he rather 
knows by sight than conversation, as he 
seldom troubles himself to stop and ex- 
change civilities, but goes grunting down 
the kennel, turning up the news and small- 
talk of the city in the shape of cabbage- 
stalks and offal, and bearing no tails but his 
own, which is a A-ery short one, for his old 
enemies the dogs have been at that too, and 
have left him hardly enough to swear by. 
He is in every respect a republican pig, 
going wherever he pleases, and mingling 
with the best society on an equal if no^ 
superior footing, for every one makes way 
Mdien he appears, and the haughtiest give 
him the wall if he prefer it. He is a great 
philosopher, and seldom moved unless by 
the dogs before mentioned. Sometimes, 
indeed, you may see his small eye twinkling 
on a slaughtered friend, whose carcass gar- 
nishes a butcher's door-post ; but he grunts 
out, " Such is life ; all flesh is pork ! " buries 
his nose in the mire again, and waddles 
down the gutter, comforting himself with 
the reflection that there is one snout the less 
to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any 
rate. 

They are the city scavengers, these jilgs. 
Ugly brutes they are ; having for the most 



43 



AMERICAN NOTES 



part scanty, brown backs, like the lids of 
old horsehair trunks, spotted with unwhole- 
some black blotches. They have long, 
gaunt legs too, and such peaked snouts that 
if one of them could be persuaded to sit 
for his profile nobody would recognize it 
for a pig's Ukeness. They are never at- 
tended upon, or fed, or driven, or caught, 
but are tlirown upon their own resources 
in early life, and become preternaturally 
knowing in consequence. Every pig knows 
Avhere he lives much better than anybody 
could tell him. At this hour, just as even- 
ing is closing in, you will see them roaming 
towards bed by scores, eating their way to 
the last. Occasionally some youth among 
them who has overeaten himself, or has 
been much worried by dogs, trots shrinking- 
ly homeward, like a prodigal son ; but this 
is a rare case ; perfect self-possession and self- 
reliance and immovable composure being 
their foremost attributes. 

The streets and shops are lighted now ; 
anel as the eye travels down the long thoi*- 
oughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is 
reminded of Oxford Street or Piccadilly. 
Here and there a flight of broad stone cellar 
stejjs appears, and a painted lamp directs 
you to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley ; 
Ten-Pins being a game of mingled chance 
and skill, invented when the legislature 
passed an act forbidding Nine-Pins. At oth- 
er downward flights of steps are other lamps 
marking the whereabouts of oyster cellars, 
— pleasant retreats, say I ; not only by rea- 
son of their wonderful cookery of oysters, 
pretty nigh as large as cheese-plates, (or for 
thy dear sake, heartiest of Greek Profes- 
sors 1) but because, of all kinds of eaters of 
fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the 
swallowcrs of oysters alone are not gregari- 
ous, but, subduing themselves, as it were, to 
the nature of what they work in, and copy- 
ing the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit 
apart in curtained boxes, and consort by 
twos, not by two hundreds. 

But how (piiet the streets are ! Are there 
no itinerant bands, no wind or stringed in- 
struments ? No, not one. By day are there 
no Punches, Fantoccini, Dancing-dogs, Jug- 
glers, Conjurers, Orchestrinas, or even Bar- 
rel-organs V No, not one. Yes, I remember 
one. One barrel-organ and a dancing mon- 
key, — sportive by nature, but fast fading 
into a dull, lumpish monkey of the Utilita- 
rian school. Beyond that, nothing lively ; 
no, not so much as a white mouse in a twirl- 
ing cage. 

\vQ tlu're no amusements ? Yes, there is 
a lecture-room across the way, from which 



that glare of light proceeds, and there may 
be evening service for the ladies thrice a 
week, or oilener. For the young gentlemen 
there is the counting-house, the store, the 
bar-room ; the latter, as you may see through 
these windows, pretty full. Hark ! to the 
clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps 
of ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pound- 
ed bits, as, in the process of mixing, they 
are poured from glass to glass ! No amuse- 
ments ? What are these suckers of cigars 
and swallowers of strong drinks, whose hats 
and legs we see in every possible variety of 
twist, doing, but amusing themselves ? What 
are the fifty newspapers, which those preco- 
cious urchins are bawling down the street, 
and which are kept filed within, — what are 
they but amusements? Not vapid, waterish 
amusements, but good strong stuff', dealing 
in round abuse and blackguard names, pull- 
ing off the roofs of private houses, as the 
Halting Devil did in Spain; pimping and 
pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, 
and gorging with coined lies the most vora- 
cious maw ; imputing to every man in public 
life the coarsest and the vilest motives ; scar- 
ing away from the stabbed and prostrate 
body-politic every Samaritan of clear con- 
science and good deeds ; and setting on, with 
yell and whistle, and the clapping of foul 
hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of 
prey. — No amusements ! 

Let us go on again, and passing this wil- 
derness of an hotel with stores about its base, 
like some Continental theatre or the London 
Opera House shorn of its colonnade, plunge 
into the Five Points. But it is needful, first, 
that we take as our escort these two heads 
of the police, whom you would know for 
sharp and well-trained officers if you met 
them In the Great Desert. So true It is, that 
certain pursuits, wherever carried on, will 
stamp men with the same character. These 
two might have been begotten, born, and 
bred in Bow Street. 

We have seen no beggars in the streets 
by night or day, but of other kinds of stroll- 
ers plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and 
vice are rife enough where we are going 
now. 

This is the place, — these narrow ways, 
diverging to the right and left, and reeking 
everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives 
as are led here bear the same fruits here as 
elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at 
the doors have counterparts at home and all 
the wide world o\er. Debauchery has made 
the very houses prematurely old. See how 
the rotten beams are tumbling down, and 
how the patched and broken windows seem 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



49 



to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt 
in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live 
here. Do they ever wonder why their mas- 
ters walk upright in lieu of going on all- 
fours ? and why they talk instead of grunt- 
ing? 

So far nearly every house is a low tav- 
ern, and on the bar-room walls are colored 
prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria 
of England, and the American Eagle. 
Among the pigeon-holes that hold the bot- 
tles are jjieces of plate-glass and colored 
paper, for there is, in some sort, a taste for 
decoration, even here. And as seamen fre- 
quent these haunts, there are maritime pic- 
tures, by the dozen, of partings between 
sailors and their lady-loves ; portraits of 
William, of the ballad, and his Black-Eyed 
Susan ; of Will Watch, the Bold Smuggler ; 
of Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like ; on 
which the painted eyes of Queen Victoria, 
and of Washington to boot, rest in as 
strange companionship as on most of the 
scenes that are enacted in their wondering 
presence. 

What place is this to which the squalid 
street conducts us ? A kind of square of 
lepi-ous houses, some of which are attaina- 
ble only by crazy wooden stairs without. 
What lies beyond this tottering flight of 
steps, that creak beneath our tread ? A 
miserable room, lighted by one dim candle, 
and destitute of all comfort, save that which 
may be hidden in a wi-etched bed. Beside 
it sits a man, his elbows on his knees, his 
forehead hidden in his hands. " What 
ails that man ? " asks the foremost officer. 
" Fever," he sullenly replies, without look- 
ing up. Conceive the fancies of a fevered 
brain in such a place as this ! 

Ascend these pitcli-dark stairs, heedful 
of a false footing on the trembling boards, 
and grope your way with me into this wolf- 
ish den, where neither ray of light nor 
breath of air appears to come. A negro 
lad, startled fi-om his sleep by the officer's 
voice, — he knows it well, — Ijut comforted 
by his assurance that he has not come on 
business, officiously bestirs himself to light 
a candle. The match flickers for a mo- 
ment, and shows great mounds of dusky 
rags upon the ground ; then dies away and 
leaves a denser darkness than before, if 
there can be degrees in such extremes. He 
stumbles down the stairs and presently 
comes back, shading a flaring taper with 
his hand. Then the mounds of rags arc 
seen to be astir, and rise slowly up, and the 
floor is covered with heaps of negro women, 
waking from their sleep ; their white teeth 
4 



chattering, and their bright eyes glistening 
and winking on all sides with surprise and 
fear, like the countless repetition of one 
astonished African face in some strange 
mirror. 

Mount up these other stairs with no less 
caution (there are traps and pitfalls here 
for those who are not so well escorted as 
ourselves) into the house-top ; where the 
bare beams and rafters meet overhead, and 
calm night looks down through the crevices 
in the roof Open the door of one of these 
cramped hutches full of sleeping negroes. 
Pah ! They have a charcoal fire within ; 
there is a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, 
so close they gather round the brazier ; and 
vapors issue forth that blind and suffocate. 
From every corner, as you glance about 
you in these dark retreats, some figure 
crawls half awakened, as if the judgment 
hour were near at hand, and every obscene 
grave were giving up its dead. Where 
dogs would howl to lie, women and men 
and boys slink off* to sleep, forcing the dis- 
lodged rats to move away in quest of better 
lodgings. 

Here too are lanes and alleys, paved 
with mud knee-deep ; underground cham- 
bers, where they dance and game ; the 
walls bedecked with rough designs of ships, 
and forts, and flags, and American Eagles 
out of number ; ruined houses open to the 
street, whence, through wide gaps in the 
walls, other ruins loom ujDon the eye, as 
though the world of vice and misery had 
nothing else to show ; hideous tenements 
which take their name from robbeiy and 
murder ; all that is loathsome, di-ooping, 
and decayed is here. 

Our leader has his hand upon the latch 
of " Almack's," and calls to us from the 
bottom of the stejis ; for the assembly-room 
of the Five Point fashionables is approached 
by a descent. Shall we go in ? It is but a 
moment. 

Heyday ! the landlady of Almack's 
thrives ! A bu.xom fat mulatto woman, 
with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily 
ornamented with a handkerchief of many 
colors. Nor is the landlord much behind 
her in his finery, being attired in a smart 
blue jacket, like a ship's steward, with a 
thick gold ring upon his little finger, and 
round his neck a gleaming golden watch- 
guard. How glad he is to see us ! What 
will we please to call for ? A dance 'r* It 
shall be done directly, sir ; " a regular 
break-down." 

The corpulent black fiddler, and his 
fi-iend who plays the tambourine, stamp 



AMERICAN NOTES 



upon the boarding of the small raised or- 
chestra in which they sit, and play a lively 
measure. Five or six couple come upon 
the floor, marshalled by a lively young ne- 
gro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the 
greatest dancer known. He never leaves 
off making queer flices, and is the delight 
of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear in- 
cessantly. Among the dancers are two 
young mulatto girls, with large, black, 
drooping eyes, and head-gear after the fash- 
ion of the hostess, who are as shy, or teign 
to be, as though they never danced before, 
and so look down before the visitors, that 
their partners can see nothing but the long 
fringed lashes. 

But the dance commences. Every gen- 
tleman sets as long as he likes to the op- 
posite lady, and the opposite lady to him, 
and all are so long about it, that the sport 
begins to languish, when suddenly the live- 
ly hero dashes in to the rescue. Instantly 
the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and 
nail ; there is new energy in the tambour- 
ine ; new laughter in the dancers ; new 
smiles in the landlady ; new confidence in 
the landlord ; new brightness in the very 
candles. Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut 
and cross-cut ; snapping his fingers, rolling 
his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting 
the backs of his legs in front, spinning about 
on his toes and heels like nothing but the 
man's fingers on the tambourine ; dancing 
with two left legs, two right legs, two 
wooden legs, two wire legs, two sjiring 
legs, — all sorts of legs and no legs, — ■ what 
is this to him ? And in what walk of life, 
or dance of life, does man ever get such 
stimulating applause as thunders about him, 
when, having danced his partner off her 
feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping 
gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling 
for something to drink, with the chuckle of 
a million of counterfeit Jim Crows in one 
inimitable sound ! 

The air, even in these distempered j^arts, 
is fresh after the stifling atmosphere of the 
houses ; and now, as we emerge into a 
broader street, it blows upon us with a 
purer breath, and the stai-s look bi-Ight 
again. Here are The Tombs once more. 
The city watch-house is a part of the build- 
ing. It follows naturally on the sights we 
have just left. Let us see that, and then 
to bed. 

'WHiat ! do you thrust your common of- 
fenders against the police discipline of the 
town into such holes as these ? Do men and 
women, against whom no crime is proved, 
lie here all night in perfect darkness, sur- 



rounded by the noisome vapors which en- 
circle tliat flagging lamp you light us with, 
and breathing this filthy and oflensive 
stench? Why, such indecent and disgust- 
ing dungeons as tliese cells would bring dis- 
grace upon the most despotic empire In the 
world ! Look at them, man, — you who 
see them every night, and keep the keys. 
Do you see what they are ? Do you know 
how drains are made below the streets, and 
wherein these human sewers differ, except 
in being always stagnant? 

Well, he don't know. He has had five- 
and-twcnty young women locked up in this 
very cell at one time, and you'd hardly 
realize what handsome faces there wore 
among 'em. 

In God's name ! shut the door upon the 
wretched creature who is in it now, and 
put its screen before a place quite unsur- 
passed in all the vice, neglect, and devilry 
of the worst old town in Europe. 

Are people really left all night, untried, 
in those black sties ? — Every night. The 
watch is set at seven in the evening. The 
magistrate opens his court at five in the 
morning. That is the earliest hour at 
which the first prisoner can be released ; 
and if an officer appear against him, he 
is not taken out till nine o'clock or ten. 
But if any one among them die in the 
interval, as one man did, not long ago ? 
Then he is half eaten by the rats in an 
hour's time, as that man was ; and there 
an end. 

What is this intolerable tolling of great 
bells, and crashing of wheels, and shouting 
in the distance ? A fire. And what that 
deeji red light in the opposite direction ? 
Another fire. And what these charred 
and blackened walls we stand before? A 
dwelling where a fire has been. It was 
more than hinted, in an official report, not 
long ago, that some of these conilagrations 
wei-e not wholly accidental, and that spec- 
ulation and enterprise found a field of exer- 
tion even in flames ; but be this as it may, 
there was a fire last night, there are two to- 
night, and you may lay an even wager there 
will be at least one to-morrow. So, carry- 
ing that with us for our comfort, let us say 
Good night, and climb up stairs to bed. 



One day, during my stay in New York, 
I paid a visit to the different public Institu- 
tions on Long Island, or Rhode Island, I 
forget which. One of them is a Lunatic 
Asylum. The building is handsome ; and 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



is remarkable for a spacious and elegant 
staircase. The whole structure is not yet 
finished, but it is already one of considera- 
ble size and extent, and is capable of ac- 
commodating a very large number of pa- 
tients. 

I cannot say that I derived much comfort 
from the inspection of this charity. The 
dilFerent wards might have been cleaner 
and better ordered ; I saw nothing of that 
salutary system which had impressed me so 
favorably elsewhere ; and everything had a 
lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was 
vei-y painful. The moping idiot, cowering 
down with long dishevelled hair ; the gib- 
bering maniac, with his hideous laugh and 
pointed finger ; the vacant eye, the fierce 
wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands 
and lips, and munching of the nails ; there 
they were all, without disguise, in naked 
ugliness and horror. In the dining-room, a 
bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for 
the eye to rest on but the empty walls, a 
woman was locked up alone. She was 
bent, they told me, on committing suicide. 
If anything could have strengthened her in 
her resolution, it would certainly have been 
the insupportable monotony of such an ex- 
istence. 

The terrible crowd with which these halls 
and galleries were filled so shocked me, that 
I abridged my stay within the shortest lim- 
its, and declined to see that portion of the 
building in which the refractory and vio- 
lent were under closer restraint. I have no 
doubt that the gentleman who presided 
over this establishment at the time I write 
of was competent to manage it, and had 
done all in his power to promote its useful- 
ness ; but will it be believed that the miser- 
able strife of Party feeling is carried even 
into this sad refuge of afflicted and degrad- 
ed humanity ? Will it be believed that the 
eyes which are to watch over and control 
the wanderings of minds on which the most 
dreadful visitation to which our nature is 
exposed has fixllen, must wear the glasses of 
some wretched side in Politics ? Will it 
be believed that the governor of such a 
house as this is appointed and deposed and 
changed perpetually, as Parties fluctuate 
and vary, and as their despicable weather- 
cocks are blown this way or that ? A hun- 
dred times in every week some new most 
paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded 
and injurious Party Spirit which is the Si- 
moom of America, sickening and blighting 
everything of wholesome life within its 
reach, was forced upon my notice ; but I 
never turned my back upon it with feelmgs 



of such deep disgust and measureless con- 
tempt as when I crossed the threshold of 
this madhouse. 

At a short distance from this building is 
another called the Almshouse, that is to say, 
the workhouse of New York. This is a 
large institution also, lodging, I believe, 
when I was there, nearly a thousand poor. 
It was badly ventilated, and badly hghted, 
was not too clean, and impressed me, on 
the whole, very uncomfortably. But it 
must be remembered that New York, as a 
great emporium of commerce, and as a 
place of general resort, not only from all 
parts of the States, but from most parts 
of the woi-ld, has always a larger jDauper 
23opulation to provide for, and labors, 
therefore, under peculiar difficulties in 
this respect. Nor must it be forgotten that 
New York is a large town, and that in 
all large towns a vast amount of good 
and evil is intermixed and jumbled up 
together. 

In the same neighborhood is the Farm, 
where young orphans are nursed and bred. 
I did not see it, but I believe it is well con- 
ducted ; and I can the more easily credit 
it, from knowing how mindful they usually 
are, in America, of that beautiful passage 
in the Litany which remembers all sick jser- 
sons and young children. 

I was taken to these Institutions by wa- 
ter in a boat belonging to the Island Jail, 
and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who 
were dressed in a striped uniform of black 
and buff", in which they looked like faded 
tigers. They took me, by the same con- 
veyance, to the Jail itself 

It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer 
establishment, on the plan I have already 
described. I was glad to hear this, for it 
is unquestionably a very indifferent one. 
The most is made, however, of the means 
it possesses, and it is as well regulated as 
such a place can be. 

The women worked in covered sheds 
erected for that purpose. If I remember 
right, there are no shops for the men, but, 
be that as it may, the greater part of them 
labor in certain stone-quarries near at hand. 
The day being very wet indeed, this labor 
was suspended, and the prisoners were in 
their cells. Imagine these cells, some two 
or three hundred in number, and in every 
one a man locked ui> ; this one at his door 
for air, with his hands thrust through the 
grate; this one in bed (in the middle of 
the day, remember) ; and this one ffung 
down in a heap upon the ground, with his 
head against the bai-s, like a wild beast. 



52 



AMERICAN NOTES 



]\Iake the rain pour down, outside, in tor- 
runts. Put the everlasting stove in the 
midst, — hot, and suffocating, and vaporous 
as a witch's caldron. Add a collection of 
gentle odors, such as would arise from a 
thousand mildewed umbrellas, wet through, 
and a thousand buck-baskets, full of half- 
washed linen, — and there is the prison, as 
it was that day. 

The 2)rison for the State at_ Sing Sing 
is, on the other hand, a model jail. That, 
and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and 
best examples of the silent system. 

In another part of the city is the Refuge 
for the Destitute, an Institution whose ob- 
ject is to reclaim youthful offenders, male 
and female, black and white, without dis- 
tinction, — to teach them useful trades, 
apprentice them to respectable masters, 
and make them worthy members of society. 
Its design, it will be seen, is similar to that 
at Boston, and it is a no less meritorious 
and admirable establishment. A suspicion 
crossed my mind, during my inspection of 
this noble charity, whether the superintend- 
ent had quite sutHcient knowledge of the 
world and worldly characters ; and whether 
he did not commit a great mistake in treat- 
ing some young girls, who were, to all in- 
tents and purposes, by their years and their 
past lives, women, as though they were lit- 
tle children, which certainly had a ludicrous 
effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mis- 
taken, in theirs also. As the Institution, 
however, is always under the vigilant ex- 
amination of a body of gentlemen of great 
intelligence and experience, it cannot fail 
to be well conducted ; and whether I am 
right or wrong in this slight particular is 
unimportant to its deserts and character, 
which it would be difficult to estimate too 
highly. 

In addition to these establishments, there 
are in New York excellent hospitals and 
schools, literary institutions and libraries ; 
an admirable fire department (as indeed it 
should be, having constant practice), and 
charities of every sort and kind. In the 
suburbs there is a sjiacious cemetery, un- 
finished yet, but every day improving. 
The saddest tomb I saw there was, " The 
Strangers' Grave. Dedicated to the differ- 
ent hotels in this city." 

There are three principal theatres. Two 
of them, the Park and the Bowery, are 
large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and 
are, I grieve to write it, generally deserted. 
The third, the Olympic, is a tiny show-box 
for vaudevilles and bui-lesques. It is sin- 
gularly well conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a 



comic actor of great quiet humor and origi- 
nality, who is well remembered and es- 
teemed by London play-goers. I am hap- 
py to report of this deserving gentleman, 
tbat his benches are usually well filled, and 
that his theatrp rings with merriment every 
night. I had almost forgotten a small sum- 
mer theatre, called Niblo's, with gardens 
and open-air amusements attached ; but 
I believe it is not exempt from the general 
dejiression under which Theatrical Prop- 
erty, or what is humorously called by that 
name, unfortunately laboi-s. 

The country round New York is surpass- 
ingly and exquisitely picturesque. The 
climate, as I have already intimated, is 
somewhat of the warmest. What it would 
be, without the sea breezes which come 
from its beautiful Bay in the evening-time, 
I will not throw myself or my readers into 
a fever by inquiring. 

The tone of the best society in this city 
is like that of Boston ; here and there, it 
may be, with a greater infusion of the mer- ' 
cantile spirit, but generally polished and 
refined, and always most hospitable. The 
houses and tables are elegant ; the hours 
later and more rakish ; and there is, per- 
haps, a gi-eater spirit of contention in ref- 
erence to appearances, and the display of 
wealth and costly living. The ladies are 
singularly beautiful. 

Before I left New York I made arrange- 
ments for securing a passage home in the 
George Washington packet ship, which was 
advertised to sail in June ; that being the 
month in which I had determined, if pre- 
vented by no accident in the course of my 
rambhngs, to leave America. 

I never thought that going back to Eng- 
land, returning to all who are dear to me, < 
and to pursuits that have insensibly grown 
to be part of my nature, I could have felt 
so much sorrow as I endured when I parted 
at last, on board this ship, with the friends 
who had accompanied me from this city. I 
never thought the name of any place, so far 
away, and so lately known, could ever as- 
sociate itself in ray mind with the crowd of 
affectionate remembrances that now cluster 
about it. There are those in this city who 
would brighten, to me, the darkest win- ' 
ter-day that ever glimmered and went out 
in Lapland ; and before whose presence 
even Home gi'ew dim, when they and I 
exchanged that painful word which min- 
gles with our every thought and deed, — 
which haunts our cradle-heads in infitncy, 
and closes up the vista of our lives in 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



53 



CHAPTER VII. 

PHILADELPHIA AND ITS SOLITARY 
PRISON. 

The journey from New York to Phila- 
delphia IS made by railroad, and two ferries, 
and usually occupies between five and six 
hours. It was a fine evening when we were 
passengers in the train ; and watching the 
bright sunset from a little window near the 
door by which we sat, my attention was at- 
tracted to a remarkable appearance issuing 
from the windows of the gentlemen's car 
immediately in front of us, which I sup- 
posed for some time was occasioned by a 
number of industrious persons inside rip- 
plag open feather-beds, and giving the 
feathers to the wind. At length it occurred 
to me that they were only spitting, which 
was indeed the case ; though how any num- 
ber of passengers which it was possible for 
that car to contain could have maintained 
such a playful and incessant shower of ex- 
pectoration, I am still at a loss to under- 
stand, notwithstanding the experience in 
all salivatory phenomena which I after- 

'. wards acquired. 

I made acquaintance, on this journey, 
with a mild and modest young Quaker, who 
opened the discourse by informing me, in a 
grave whisper, that his grandfather was the 
inventor of cold-drawn castor-oil. I men- 
tion the circumstance here, thinking it 
probable that this is the first occasion on 
which the valuable medicine in question 
was ever used as a conversational aperient. 
"We reached the city late that night. 
Looking out of my chamber window, betbre 
going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side 
of the way, a handsome building of white 
marble, which had a mournful, ghost-like 
aspect, dreary to behold. I attributed this 
to the sombre influence of the night, and 
on rising in the morning looked out again, 

' expecting to see its steps and portico 
thronged with groups of people passing in 
and out. The door was still tight shut, 
however ; the same cold, cheerless air pre- 
vailed ; and the building looked as if the 
marble statue of Don Guzman could alone 
have any business to transact within Its 
gloomy walls. I hastened to inquire Its 
name and purpose, and then my surprise 
vanished. It was the Tomb of many for- 
tunes ; the Great Catacomb of investment ; 
the memorable United States Bank. 

The stoppage of this bank, with all its ru- 
inous consequences, had cast (as I was told 
on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, un- 
der the depressing effect of which it yet 



labored. It certainly did seem rather dull 
and out of spirits. 

It Is a handsome city, but distractlngly 
regular. After walking about it for an 
hour or two, I felt that 1 would have given 
the world for a crooked street. The collar 
of my coat appeared to stlfren,and the brim 
of my hat to expand, beneath Its Quakerly 
Influence. My hair shrunk into a sleek 
short crop, my hands folded themselves up- 
on my breast of their own calm accord, and 
thoughts of taking lodgings In Mark Lane 
over against the Market Place, and of mak- 
ing a large fortune by speculations in corn, 
came over me involuntarily. 

Philadelphia is most bountifully provided 
with fresh water, which is showered and 
jerked about, and turned on, and poured 
off, everywhere. The Waterworks, which 
are on a height near the city, are no less 
ornamental than useful, being tastefully 
laid out as a public garden, and kept In the 
best and neatest order. The river is 
dammed at this point, and forced by its own 
power into certain high tanks or reservoirs, 
whence the whole city, to the top stories of 
the houses, is supplied at a very trifling ex- 
pense. 

There are various public institutions. 
Among them a most excellent hospital, — a 
Quaker establishment, but not sectarian in 
the great benefits it confers ; a quiet, quaint 
old Library, named after Franklin ; a hand- 
some Exchange and Post Office ; and so 
forth. In connection with the Quaker Hos- 
pital, there is a picture by West, which is 
exhibited for the benefit of the funds of the 
institution. The subject is our Saviour 
healing the sick, and it Is, perhaps, as favor- 
able a specimen of the master as can be 
seen anywhere. Whether this be high or 
low praise depends upon the reader's taste. 

In the same room, there is a very charac- 
teristic and life-like portrait by Mr. Sully, a 
distinguished American artist. 

My°stay in Philadelphia was very short, 
but what I saw of its society I greatly liked. 
Treating of its general characteristics, I 
should be disposed to say, that it is more 
provincial than Boston or New York, and 
that there is afloat in the fair city an 
assumption of taste and criticism, savoring 
rather of those genteel discussions upon the 
same themes, in connection with Shake- 
speare and the Musical Glasses, of which we 
read in the Vicar of Wakefield. Near the 
city Is a most splendid unfinished marble 
structure for the Girard College, founded 
by a deceased gentleman of that name and 
of enormous wealth, which, if completed 



i>i 



AMERICAN NOTES 



according to the original design, will be 
])crhaps the rich.est edifice of modern times. 
But the bequest is involved in legal dis- 
putes, and, pending them, the work has 
stopped, so that, like many other great im- 
dertakings in America, even this is rather 
going to be done one of these days, than do- 
ing now. 

In the outskirts stands a great prison, 
called the Eastern Penitentiary, conducted 
on a plan peculiar to the State of Pennsyl- 
vania. The system here is rigid, strict, and 
hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it, 
in its effects, to be cruel and wrong. 

In its intention, I am well convinced that 
it is kind, humane, and meant for reforma- 
tion ; but I am persuaded that those who 
devised this system of Prison Discipline, and 
those benevolent gentlemen who carry it 
into execution, do not know what it is that 
they are doing. I believe that very few 
men arc capable of estimating the immense 
amount of torture and agony which this 
dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, 
indicts upon the sufferers ; and in guessing 
at it myself, and in reasoning from what I 
have seen written upon their faces, and 
what to my certain knowledge they feel 
within, I am oijly the more convinced that 
there is a depth of terrible endurance in it 
which none but the sufferers themselves can 
fathom, and which no man has a right to 
inflict upon his fellow-creature. I hold tliis 
slow and daily tampering with the mysteries 
of the brain to be immeasurably worse than 
any torture of the body ; and because its 
ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable 
to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon 
the flesh, — because its wounds are not upon 
the surface, and it extorts few cries that 
human ears can hear, — therefore I the 
more denounce it as a secret punishment 
which slumbering humanity is not roused up 
to stay. I hesitated once, debating with 
myself, whether, if I had the power of say- 
ing " Yes," or " No," I would allow it to be 
tried in certain cases, where the terms of 
imprisonment were short; but now I sol- 
emnly declare, that with no rewards or 
honors could I walk a happy man beneath 
the open sky by day, or lie me down ujion 
my bed at night, with the consciousness 
that one human creature, for any length of 
time, no matter what, lay suffering this un- 
known punishment in his silent cell, and I 
the cause, or I consenting to it in the least 
degree. 

I was accompanied to this prison by two 
gentlemen, officially connected with its man- 
agement, and passed the day in going from 



cell to cell, and talking with the inmates. 
Every facility was afforded me that the ut- 
most courtesy could suggest. Nothing was 
concealed or hidden li-om my view, and 
every piece of information that I sought 
was oi)enly and frankly given. The per- 
fect order of the building cannot be praised 
too highly, and of the excellent motives of 
all who are immediately concernt-d in the 
administration of the system there can be 
no kind of question. 

Between the body of the prison iind the 
outer wall there is a spacious garden. En- 
tering it by a wicket in the massive gate, 
we i)ursue(l the path before us to its other 
termination, and passed into a large cham- 
ber, from which seven long passages radi- 
ate. On cither side of each is a long, long 
row of low cell doors, with a certain num- ■< 
ber over every one. Above, a gallery of | 
cells like those below, except that they have ^t 
no narrow yard attached (as those in the 
ground-tier have"), and are somewhat small- 
er. The possession of two of these is sup- 
posed to compensate for the absence of so 
much air and exercise as can be had in the 
dull strip attached to each of the others, in 
an hour's time every day ; and therefore 
every prisoner in this upper story has two 
cells, adjoining, and communicating with, 
each other. 

Standing at the central point, and look- 
ing down these dreary passages, the dull 
repose and quiet that prevails is awful. 
Occasionally there is a drowsy sound from 
some lone weaver's shuttle, or shoemaker's 
last ; but it is stifled by the thick walls and 
heavy dungeon door, and only serves to 
make the general stillness more profound. 
Over the head and face of every prisoner 
who comes into this melancholy house a 
black hood is drawn ; and in this dark 
shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped 
between him and the living world, he is led 
to the cell from which he never again comes 
forth, until his whole term of imprisonment 
has expired. He never hears of wife or 
children, home or friends, the life or death 
of any single creature. He sees the prison 
officers, but, with that exception, lie never 
looks upon a human countenance or hears 
a human voice. He is a man buried alive, 
— to be dug out in the slow round of years ; 
and in the mean time dead to everything 
but torturing anxieties and horrible de- 
spair. 

His name, and crime, and terra of suffer- 
ing are unknown even to the officer Avho 
delivers him his daily food. There is a 
number over his cell door, and in a book 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



55 



of which the governor of the prison has one 
copy, and the moral instructor another : 
this is the index to his history. Beyond 
these pages the prison has no record of his 
existence ; and, though he live to be in tiic 
same cell ten weary years, he has no means 
of knowing, down to the very last hour, in 
what part of the building it is situated ; what 
kind of men there are about him ; whether 
in tlie long winter nights there are living 
people near, or he is in some lonely corner 
of the great jail, with walls and passages 
and iron doors between him and the near- 
est sharer in its solitary horrors. 

Every cell has double doors, — the outer 
one of sturdy oak, the other of grated iron, 
wherein there is a trap through which his 
food is handed. He has a Bible, and a 
slate and pencil, and, under certain restric- 
tions, has sonu'times other books, provided 
for the purpose, and pen and ink and pa- 
per. His razor, plate, and can and basin, 
hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little 
shelf. Fresh water is laid on in every cell, 
and he can draw it at his pleasure. During 
the day his bedstead turns up against the 
wall, and leaves more space for him to work 
His loom, or bench, or wheel is there : 
and there he labors, sleeps and wakes, and 
counts the seasons as they change, and 
grows old. 

The first man I saw was seated at his 
loom at work. He had been there six 
years, and was to remain, I think, three 
more. He had been convicted as a receiver 
of stolen goods ; but even after this long 
imprisonment denied the guilt and said he 
had been hardly dealt by. It was his sec- 
ond offt'uce. 

He stopped his work when we went In, 
took off his spectacles, and answered freely 
to everything that was said to him, but 
always with a strange kind of pause first, 
and in a low, thoughtful voice. He wore a 
paper hat of his own making, and was 
pleased to have it noticed and commended. 
He had very ingeniously manufactured a 
sort of Dutch clock from some disregarded 
odds and ends ; and his vinegar-bottle 
served for the pendulum. Seeing me in- 
terested in this contrivance, he looked up 
at it with a great deal of pride, and said 
that lie had been thinking of improving it, 
and that he hoped the hammer and a little 
piece of broken glass beside it " would play 
music before long." He had extracted 
some colors from the yarn with which he 
worked, and painted a few poor figures on 
the wall. One, of a female, over the door, 
he called " The Lady of the Lake." 



He smiled as I lookea at these contrivan- 
ces to while away the time ; but, when I 
looked from them to him, I saw that his lip 
trembled, and could have counted the beat- 
ing of his heart. 1 forget how it came 
about, but some allusion was made to his 
having a wife. He shook his head at the 
word, turned aside, and covered his face 
with his hands. 

" But you are resigned now ! " said one 
of the gentlemen, after a sliort pause, during 
which he had resumed his former manner. 
He answered, with a sigh tliat seemed cpiite 
reckless in its hopelessness, " O yes, O yes ! 
I am resigned to it." " And arc a better 
man, you think ? " " Well, I hope so ; I 'm 
sure I hope I may be." " And time goes 
pretty quickly ? " " Time is very long, 
gentlemen, within these four walls ! " 

He gazed about him — Heaven only 
knows how wearily ! — as he said these 
words ; and, in the act of doing so, fell into 
a strange stare as if he had forgotten some- 
tliing. A moment afterwards he sighed 
heavily, put on his spectacles, and went 
about his work again. 

In another cell there was a German, sen- 
tenced to five years' imprisonment for lar- 
ceny, two of Avhich had just expired. With 
coloi-s procured in the same manner, he 
had painted every inch of the walls and 
ceiling cpiite beautifully. He had laid out 
the few feet of ground beliind with exqui- 
site neatness, and had made a little bed in 
the centre, that looked, by the by, like a 
grave. The taste and ingenuity he had 
displayed in everything were most extraor- 
dinary ; and yet a more dejected, heart- 
broken, wretched creature it Avould be diffi- 
cult to imagine. I never saw such a picture 
of forlorn affliction and distress of mind. 
My heart bled for him ; and when the tears 
ran down his cheeks, and he took one of the 
visitors aside to ask, with his trembling 
hands nervously clutching at his coat to de- 
tain him, whether there was no hope of his 
dismal sentence being commuted, the spec- 
tacle was really too painful to witness. I 
never saw or heard of any kind of misery 
that impressed me more than the wretched- 
ness of this man. 

In a third cell was a tall, strong black, a 
burglar, working at his proper trade of mak- 
ing screws and the like. His time was 
nearly out. He was not only a very dex- 
terous thief, but was notorious for his bold- 
ness and hardihood, and for the number of 
his previous convictions. He entertained 
us with a long account of his achievements, 
which he narrated with such infinite relish, 



56 



AMERICAN NOTES 



that he actually seemed to lick liis lips as he 
told us racy anecdotes of stolen plate, and 
of old ladies whom he had watched as they 
sat at windows in silver spectacles (he had 
plainly had an eye to their metal, even from 
the other side of the street) and had after- 
wards robbed. This fellow, upon the sliglit- 
est encouragement, would have mingled 
with his professional recollections the most 
detestable cant ; but I am very much mis- 
taken if he could have surpassed the unmit- 
igated hypocrisy with which he declared 
that he blessed the day on which he came 
into that prison, and that he never would 
commit another robbery as long as he 
lived. 

There was one man who was allowed, as 
an indulgence, to keep rabbits. His room 
having rather a close smell in consequence, 
they called to him at the door to come 
out into the passage. He complied, of 
course, and stood shading his haggard face 
in the unwonted sunlight of the great win- 
dow, looking as wan and unearthly as if he 
had been summoned from the grave. He 
had a white rabbit in his breast ; and when 
the little creature, getting down upon the 
ground, stole back into the cell, and he, 
being dismissed, crept timidly after it, I 
thought it would have been very hard to 
say in what respect the man was the nobler 
animal of the two. 

Tiiere was an English thief, who had 
been there but a few days out of seven 
years, — a villanous, low-browed, thin- 
lipped fellow, with a white face ; who had 
as yet no relish for visitors, and who, but 
for the additional penalty, would have glad- 
ly stabbed me with his shoemaker's knife. 
There was another German who had en- 
tered the jail but yesterday, and who started 
from his bed when we looked in, and pleaded, 
in his broken English, very hard for work. 
There was a poet, who, after doing two 
days' work in every four-and-twenty hours, 
one for himself and one for the prison, wrote 
verses about ships (he was by trade a mari- 
ner), and the " maddening wine-cup," and 
his friends at home. There were very many 
of them. Some reddened at the sight of vis- 
itors, and some turned very pale. Some tAvo 
or three had prisoner nurses with them, for 
they were very sick, and one, a fat old 
negro, whose leg had been taken off with- 
in the jail, had for his attendant a classic- 
al scholar and an accomplished surgeon, 
himself a prisoner likewise. Sitting upon 
the stairs, engaged in some slight work, was 
a pretty colored boy. " Is there no refuge 
for young criminals in Philadelphia, then ? " 



said I. " Yes, but only for white children." 
Noble aristocracy in crime ! 

There was a sailor who had been there 
upwards of eleven years, and who in a few 
months' time wouhl be free. Eleven years 
of solitary confinement ! 

" I am very glad to hear your time is near- 
ly out." What does he say ? Nothing. 
Why does he stare at his hands, and pick 
the flesh upon his fingers, and raise his eyes 
for an instant, every now and then, to those 
bare walls which have seen his head turn 
gray ? It is a way he has sometimes. 

Does he never look men in the face, and 
does he always pluck at those hands of his, 
as though he were bent on parting skin 
and bone ? It is bis humor, nothing 
more. 

It is his humor, too, to say that he does 
not look forward to goinw out ; that he is 
not glad the time is drawing near ; that he 
did look forward to it once, but that was 
very long ago ; that he has lost all care for 
everything. It is his humor to be a helpless, 
crushed, and broken man. And Heaven be 
his witness that he has his humor thorough- 
ly gratified ! 

There were three young women in ad- 
joining cells, all convicted at the same time 
of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor. In 
the silence and solitude of their lives they 
had gi-own to be quite beautiful. Their 
looks were very sad, and might have moved 
the sternest visitor to tears, but not to that 
kind of sorroAv which the contemplation of 
the men awakens. One was a young girl ; 
not twenty, as I recollect ; whose snow- 
white room was hung with the work of some 
former prisoner, and upon whose downcast 
face the sun in all its splendor shone down 
through the high chink in the wall, where 
one narrow strip of bright blue sky was vis- 
ible. She was very penitent and quiet ; 
had come to be resigned, she said (and I 
believe her) ; and had a mind at peace. 
" In a word, you are happy here ? " said 
one of my companions. She struggled — 
she did struggle very hard — to answer, 
Yes ; but raising her eyes, and meeting that 
glimpse of freedom overhead, she burst into 
tears, and said, " She tried to be ; she ut- 
tered no complaint ; but it was natural that 
she should sometimes long to go out of that 
one cell ; she could not help that" she 
sobbed, poor thing ! 

I went from cell to cell that day ; and 
every face I saw, or word I heard, or inci- 
dent T noted, is present to my mind in all 
its painfulness. But let me pass them by 
for one more pleasant glance of a prison on ■ 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



57 



the same plan, wliich I afterwards saw at 
Pittsburg. 

When I had gone over that in the same 
manner, I asked the governor if he had any 
person in his charge who was shortly going 
out. He had one, he said, whose time was 
up next day ; but he had only been a pris- 
oner two years. 

Two years ! I looked back through two 
years in my own life, — out of jail, prosper- 
ous, happy, surrounded by blessings, com- 
forts, and good fortune, — and thought how 
wide a gap it was, and how long those two 
years passed in solitary captivity would 
have been. I have the face of this man, 
who was going to be released next day, be- 
fore me now. It is almost more memorable 
in its happiness than the other faces in their 
misery. How easy and how natural it was 
for him to say that the system was a good 
one, and that the time went " pretty quick 
— considering " ; and that when a man 
once felt he had offended the law, and must 
satisfy it, " he got along somehow," and so 
forth ! 

" What did he call you back to say to 
you in that strange ilutter ? " I asked of my 
conductor, when he had locked the door 
and joined me in the passage. 

" Oh ! That he was afraid the soles of 
his boots were not fit for walking, as they 
were a good deal worn when he came in ; 
and that he would thank me very much to 
have them mended, ready." 

Those boots had been taken off his feet, 
and put away with the rest of his clothes, 
two years before ! 

I took that opportunity of inquiring how 
they conducted themselves immediately be- 
fore going out, adding that I presumed they 
' trembled very much. 

" Well, it 's not so much a trembling," 
was the answer, — " though they do quiv- 
er, — as a complete derangement of the 
nervous system. They can't sign their 
names to the book ; sometimes can't even 
hold the pen ; look about 'em without ap- 
pearing to know why, or where they are ; 
and sometimes get up and sit down again, 
twenty times in a minute. This is when 
they 're in the office, where they are taken 
with the hood on, as they were brought in. 
When they get outside the gate, they stop, 
and look first one way and then the other, 
not knowing which to take. Sometimes 
they stagger as if they were drunk, and 
sometimes are forced to lean against the 
fence, they 're so bad, — but they clear off 
in course of time." 

As I walked among these solitary cells, 



and looked at the faces of the men within 
them, I tried to picture to myself the 
thoughts and feelings natural to their con- 
dition. I imagined the hood just taken oft', 
and the scene of their captivity disclosed to 
them in all its dismal monotony. 

At first, the man is stunned. His con- 
finement is a hideous vision ; and his old 
life a reality. He throws himself upon his 
bed, and lies there abandoned to despair. 
By degrees the insupportable solitude and 
barrenness of the place rouse him from this 
stupor, and when the trap in his grated 
door is opened, he humbly begs and prays 
for work. " Give me some work to do, or 
I shall go raving mad ! " 

He has it, and by fits and starts applies 
himself to labor ; but every now and then 
there comes upon him a burning sense of 
the years that must be wasted in that 
stone colHn, and an agony so piercing in 
the recollection of those who are hidden 
from his view and knowledge, that he starts 
from his seat, and, striding up and down 
the narrow room with both hands clasped 
on his uplifted head, hears spirits tempting 
him to beat his brains out on the wall. 

Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there 
moaning. Suddenly he starts up, wonder- 
ing whether any other man is near ; whether 
there is another cell hke that on either side 
of him ; and listens keenly. 

There is no sound; but other prisoners 
may be near, for all that. He remembers 
to have heard once, when he little thought 
of coming here himself, that the cells were 
so constructed that the prisoners could not 
hear each other, though the officers could 
hear them. Where is the nearest man, — 
upon the right, or on the left ? or is there 
one in both directions ? Where is he sit- 
ting now, — with his face to the light ? or is 
he walking to and fro ? How is he dressed ? 
Has he been here long ? Is he much worn 
away ? Is he very white and spectre-like ? 
Does he think of his neighbor too ? 

Scarcely venturing to breathe, and lis- 
tening while he thinks, he conjures up a 
figui-e with his back towards him, and im- 
agines it moving about in this next cell. 
He has no idea of the face, but he is cer- 
tain of the dark form of a stooping man. 
In the cell upon the other side he puts an- 
other figure, whose face is hidden from him 
also. Day after day, and often when he 
wakes up in the middle cf the night, ho 
thinks of these two men until he is al- 
most distracted. He never changes them. 
There they are always as he first imagined 
them, — an old man on the right ; a younger 



58 



AMERICAN NOTES 



man upon the left, — wliose hidden features 
tprturc him to death, and have a mystery 
that makes him tremble. 

The weary days pass on with solemn 
pace, like mourners at a funeral ; and slowly 
he begins to feel that the white walls of the 
cell have something dreadful in them ; that 
their color is horrible; that their smooth 
surface chills his blood; that there is one 
hateful corner which torments him. Every 
morning when he wakes, he hides his head 
beneath the coverlet, and shudders to see 
the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him. 
The blessed light of day itself peeps in, an 
ugly phantom'face, through the unchange- 
able crevice which is his prison window. 

By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of 
that hateful corner swell until they beset 
him at all times ; invade his rest, make his 
dreams hideous, and his nights dreadful. 
At first, he took a strange dislike to it; 
feeling as though it gave birth in his brain 
to something of corresponding shape which 
ought not to be there, and racked his head 
with pains. Then he began to fear it, then 
to dream of it, and of men whispering its 
name and pointing to it. Then he could 
not bear to look at it, nor yet to turn his 
back upon it. Now it is every night the 
lurking-place of a ghost ; a shadow ; a silent 
something, horrible to see, but whether bird 
or beast, or muffled human shape, he cannot 
tell. 

When he is In his cell by day, he fears 
the little yard without. When he is in the 
yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell. When 
night comes, there stands the phantom in 
the corner. If he have the courage to 
stand in its place, and drive it out (he had 
once, being desperate), It broods upon his 
bed. In the twilight, and always at the 
same hour, a voice calls to him by name ; as 
the darkness thickens, his Loom begins to 
live ; and even that, his comfort, is a hid- 
eous figure, watching him till daybreak. 

Again, by slow degrees, these horrible 
fancies depart from him one by one; re- 
turning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at 
longer intervals, and in less alarming shapes. 
lie has talked upon religious matters with 
the gentleman who visits him, and has read 
his Bible, and has written a prayer upon 
his slate, and hung it up as a kind of pro- 
tection, and an assurance of Heavenly com- 
panionship. He dreams now, sometimes, 
of his children or his wife, but is sure that 
they are dead, or have deserted him. He 
is easily moved to tears; is gentle, sub- 
missive, and broken-spirited. Occasionally, 
the old agony comes back ; a vei-y little 



thing will revive it ; even a familiar sound, 
or the scent of summer flowers in the air ; 
but it does not last long now ; for the world 
without has come to be the vision, and this 
solitary life the sad reality. 

If his term of imprisonment be short, — I 
mean comparatively, for short it cannot be, 
— the last hall-year is almost worse than 
all ; for then he thinks the prison will take 
fire and he be burnt in the ruins, or that he 
is doomed to die within the walls, or that 
he will be detained on some false charge 
and sentenced for another term ; or that 
something, no matter what, must happen to 
prevent his going at large. And this is 
natural, and impossible to be reasoned 
against, because, after his long separation 
from human life, and his great suffering, 
any event will appear to him more proba- 
ble in the contemplation than the being re- 
stored to liberty and his fellow-creatures. 

If his period of confinement have been 
very long, the prospect of release bewilders 
and confuses him. His broken heart may 
flutter lor a moment, when he thinks of the 
world outside, and what it might have been 
to him in all those lonely years, but that is 
all. The cell door has been closed too long 
on all its hojies and cares. Better to have 
hanged him in the beginning than bring 
him to this pass, and send him forth to min- 
gle with his kind, who are his kind no 
more. 

On the haggard face of every man among 
these prisoners the same expression sat. I 
know not what to liken it to. It had some- 
thing of that strained attention which we 
see upon the faces of the blind and deaf, 
mingled with a kind of horror, as though 
they had all been secretly terrified. In 
every little chamber that I entered, and at 
every grate through which I looked, I 
seemed to see the same appalling counte- 
nance. It lives in my memory, Avith the 
fascination of a remarkable picture. Parade 
before my eyes a hundred men, with one 
among tliem newly released from this soli- 
tary suffering, and" I would point him out. 

The faces of the women, as I have said, 
it humanizes and refines. Whether this be 
because of their better nature which is 
elicited in solitude, or because of their be- 
ing gentler creatures, of greater patience 
and longer suffering, I do not know ; but 
so it is. That the punishment is neverthe- 
less, to my thinking, fully as cruel and as 
wrong in their case as in that of the men, 
I need scarcely add. 

My firm conviction is that, independent 
of the mental anguish it occasions, — an 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



anguish so acute and so tremendous, that 
all imagination of it must fall far short of 
the reality, — it wears the mind into a mor- 
bid state, which renders it unfit for the 
rough contact and busy action of the world. 
It is my fixed opinion that tho;^e who have 
undergone this punishment must pass into 
society again morally unhealthy and dis- 
eased. There are many instances on record 
of men who have chosen or have been con- 
demned to lives of perfect solitude, but I 
scarcely remember one, even among sages 
of strong and vigorous intellect, where its 
etfect has not become apparent in some dis- 
ordered train of thought or some gloomy 
hallucination. What monstrous phantoms, 
bred of despondency and doubt, and born 
and reared in solitude, have stalked upon 
the earth, making creation ugly, and dark- 
ening the face of Heaven ! 

Suicides are rare among these prisoners ; 
are almost, indeed, unknown. But no 
argument in favor of the system can reason- 
ably be deduced from this circumstance, al- 
though it is very often urged. All men 
who have made diseases of the mind their 
study know perfectly well that such ex- 
treme depression and despair as will change 
the whole character, and beat down all its 
powers of elasticity and self-resistance, may 
be at work within a man, and yet stop 
short of self-destruction. This is a common 
case. 

That it makes the senses dull, and by 
degrees impairs the bodily faculties, I am 
quite sure. I remarked to those who were 
with me in this very establishment at Phil- 
adelphia, that the criminals who had been 
there long were deaf They, who were in 
the habit of seeing these men constantly, 
were perfectly amazed at the idea, which 
they regarded as groundless and fanciful. 
And yet the very first prisoner to whom 
they appealed — one of their .own selection 
— confirmed my impression (which was un- 
known to him) instantly, and said, with a 
genuine air it was impossible to doubt, that 
he could n't think how it happened, but he 
wcif! growing very dull of hearing. 

That it is a singularly unequal punish- 
ment, and affects the worst man least, there 
is no doubt. In its superior efficiency as a 
means of reformation, compared with that 
other code of regulations which allows the 
prisoners to work in company without com- 
municating together, I have not the small- 
est faith. All the instances of reformation 
that were mentioned to me were of a kind 
that might have been — and I have no 
doubt whatever, in my own mind, would 



have been — equally well brought about by 
the Silent System. With regard to such 
men as the negro burglar and the English 
thief, even the most enthusiastic have 
scarcely any hope of their conversion. 

It seems to me that the objection that 
nothing wholesome or good has ever had 
its growth in such unnatural solitude, and 
that even a dog, or any of the more intelli- 
gent among beasts, would pine and mope 
and rust away beneath its influence, would 
be in itself a sufficient a,rgument against 
this system. But when we recollect, in ad- 
dition, how very cruel and severe it is, and 
that a solitary life is always liable to pecu- 
liar and distinct objections of a most deplor- 
able nature, which have arisen here, and 
call to mind, moreover, that the choice is 
not between this system and a bad or ill- 
considered one, but between it and another 
which has worked well, and is, in its whole 
design and practice, excellent ; there is 
surely more than sufficient reason for 
abandoning a mode of punishment attended 
by so little hope, or promise, and fraught, 
beyond dispute, with such a host of evils. 

As a relief to its contemplation, I will 
close this chapter with a curious story, aris- 
ing out of the same theme, which was re- 
lated to me, on the occasion of this visit, 
by some of the gentlemen concerned. 

At one of the periodical meetings of the 
inspectors of this prison, a workingman of 
Philadelphia presented himself before the 
board, and earnestly requested to be placed 
in solitary confinement. On being asked 
what motive could possibly prompt him to 
make this strange demand, he answered 
that he had an irresistible propensity to get 
drunk ; that he was constantly indulging it, 
to his great misery and ruin ; that he had 
no power of resistance ; that he wished to 
be put beyond the reach of temptation ; 
and that he could think of no better way 
than this. It was pointed out to him, in 
reply, that the prison was for criminals who 
had been tried and sentenced by the law, 
and could not be made available for any 
such fanciful purposes ; he was exhorted to 
abstain from intoxicating drinks, as he 
surely might if he would ; and received 
other very good advice, with which he re- 
tired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the re- 
sult of his application. 

He came again, and again, and again, 
and was so very earnest and importunate, 
that at last they took counsel together, and 
said, " He will certainly ([ualify himself for 
admission, if we reject him any more. Let 
us shut him up. He will soon be glad to 



(30 



AMERICAN NOTES 



fjjo away, and then we shall get rid of him." 
So thuy made him sij^n a statement which 
would prevent his ever sustaining an action 
for false imprisonment, to the ellcct tliat his 
incarceration was voluntary, and of his own 
seeking ; tliey requested him to take notice 
that the officer in attendance had orders tb 
release him at any hour of the day or night 
when he might knock upon his door for that 
purpose ; but desired him to understand, 
that, once going out, he would not be ad- 
mitted any more. These conditions agreed 
upon, and he still remaining in the same 
mind, he was conducted to the prison, and 
shut up in one of the cells. 

In this cell, the man who had not the 
firmness to leave a glass of liquor standing 
nutasted on a table before him, — in this 
cell, in solitary confinement, and working 
every day at his trade of shoemaking, this 
man remained nearly two years. His 
health beginning to fail at the expiration 
of that time, the surgeon recommended that 
he should work occasionally in the garden ; 
and, as he liked the notion very much, he 
went about this new occupation with great 
cheerfulness. 

He was digging here, one summer day, 
A^ery industriously, when the wicket in the 
outer gate chanced to be left open, show- 
ing, beyond, the well-remembered dusty 
road and sunburnt fields. The way was as 
free to him as to any man living ; but he 
no sooner raised his head and caught sight 
of it, all shining in the light, than, with the 
involuntary instinct of a prisoner, he cast 
away his spade, scampered otf as fast as his 
legs would carry him, and never once looked 
back. 



CHAPTER Yin. 

WASniXGTOX. THE LEGISLATURE. AND 
THE president's HOUSE. 

"VVe left Philadelphia by steamboat at six 
o'clock one very cold morning, and turned 
our faces towards Washington. 

In the course of this day's journev, as on 
subsecpient occasions, we encountered some 
Englishmen (small farmers, perhaps, or 
country publicans at home) who were set- 
tled in America, and were travelling on 
their own affairs. Of all grades and kinds 
of men that jostle one in the public convey- 
ances of the States, these are often the most 
intolerable and the most insufferable com- 
l>anions. United to every disagreeable 
characteristic that the worst kind of Ameri- 



can travellers possess, these countrymen of 
ours display an amount of insolent conceit 
and cool assumption of superiority quite 
monstrous to behold. In the coarse famil- 
iarity of their approach, and the effrontery 
of their inquisitiveness (which they are in 
great haste to assert, as if they panted to 
revenge themselves upon the decent old re- 
straints of home), they surpass any native 
specimens that came within my range of 
observation ; and I often grew so patriotic, 
when I saw and heard them, that I would 
cheerfully have submitted to a reasonable 
fine, if I could have given any other coun- 
try in the whole world the honor of claim- 
ing them for its children. 

As Washington may be called the head- 
quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the 
time is come when I must confess, without 
any disguise, that the prevalence of those 
two odious practices of chewing and expec- 
torating began about this time to be any- 
thing but agreeable, and soon became most 
offensive and sickening. In all the public 
i:)laces of America this filthy custom is rec- 
ognized. In the courts of law the judge 
has his spittoon, the ci'ier his, the witness 
his, and the prisoner his ; while the jury- 
men and spectators are provided for, as so 
many men who in the course of nature must 
desire to spit incessantly. In the hospitals 
the students of medicine are requested, by 
notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco 
juice into the boxes provided for that pur- 
pose, and not to discolor the stairs. In pub- 
lic buildings, visitors are implored, through 
the same agency, to squirt the essence of 
their quids, or " plugs," as I have heard 
them called Ijy gentlemen learned in this 
kind of sweetmeat, into the national spit- 
toons, and not about the bases of the mar- 
ble columns. But in some parts this cus- 
tom is inseparably mixed up with every 
meal and morning call, and with all the 
transactions of social life. The stranger 
who follows in the track I took myself will 
find it in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant 
in all its alarming recklessness, at Wash- 
ington. And let him not persuade himself 
(as I once did, to my sliame), that previous 
tourists have exaggerated its extent. The 
tiling itself is an exaggeration of nastiness 
wliich cannot be outdone. 

On board this steamboat there were two 
young gentlemen, with shirt-collars reversed 
as usual, and armed with very big walking- 
sticks, who planted two seats in the middle 
of the deck, at a distance of some four paces 
apart, took out their tobacco-boxes, and sat 
down opposite each other to chew. In less 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



61 



than a quarter of an hour's time, these 
hopeful youths had shed about them on the 
clean boards a copious shower of yellow 
rain; clearing, by that means, a kind of 
magic circle, within whose limits no intrud- 
ers dared to come, and which they never 
failed to refresh and re-refresh before a spot 
was dry. This, being before breakfast, rath- 
er disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but 
looking attentively at one of the expectora- 
tors, 1 plainly saw that he was young in 
chewing, and felt inwardly uneasy himself 
A glow of delight came over me at this dis- 
covery ; and as I marked his face turn paler 
and paler, and saw the ball of tobacco in 
his left cheek quiver with his suppressed 
agony, while yet he spat and chewed and 
spat again, in emulation of his older friend, 
I could have fallen on his neck and im- 
plored him to go on for hours. 

We all sat down to a comfortable break- 
fast in the cabin below, where there was no 
more hurry or confusion than at such a 
meal in England, and where there was cer- 
tainly greater politeness exhibited than at 
most of our stage-coach banquets. At 
about nine o'clock we arrived at the rail- 
road station, and went on by the cars. At 
noon we turned out again to cross a wide 
river in another steamboat; landed at a 
continuation of the railroad on the opposite 
shore, and went on by other cars ; in Avhich, 
in the course of the next hour or so, we 
crossed by wooden bridges, each a mile in 
length, two creeks called respectively Great 
and Little Gunpowder. The water in both 
was blackened with flights of canvas-backed 
ducks, which are most delicious eating, and 
abound hereabouts at that season of the 
year. 

These bridges are of wood, have no para- 
pet, and are only just wide enough for the 
passage of the trains ; which, in the event 
of the smallest accident, would inevitably 
be plunged into the river. They are start- 
ling contrivances, and are most agreeable 
when passed. 

We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and, 
being now in Maryland, were waited on for 
the first time by slaves. The sensation of 
exacting any service from human creatures 
who are bought and sold, and being, for the 
time, a party as it were to their condition, 
is not an enviable one. The institution 
exists, pei-haps, in its least i-epulsive and 
most mitigated form in such a town as this ; 
but it w slavery ; and though I was, with 
respect to it, an innocent man, its presence 
filled me with a sense of shame and self- 
reproach. 



After dinner, we went down to the rail- 
road again, and took our seats in the cars 
for Washington. Being rather early, those 
men and boys who happened to have noth- 
ing particular to do, and were curious in 
foreigners, came (according to custom) 
rx)und the carriage in which I sat ; let down 
all the windows ; thrust in their heads and 
shoulders ; hooked themselves on conven- 
iently by their elbows ; and fell to compar- 
ing notes on the subject of my personal 
appearance, with as much indifference as if 
I were a stufi'ed figure. I never gained so 
much uncompromising information with ref- 
erence to my own nose and eyes, the vari- 
ous impressions wrought by my mouth and 
chin on different minds, and how my head 
looks when it is viewed from behind, as on 
these occasions. Some gentlemen were 
only satisfied by exercising their sense of 
touch ; and the boys (who are surprisingly 
precocious in America) were seldom satis- 
fied, even by that, but would return to the 
charge over and over again. Many a bud- 
ding President has walked into my room, 
with his cap on his head and his hands in 
his pockets, and stared at me for two whole 
hours ; occasionally refreshing himself with 
a tweak at his nose, or a draught fi'om the 
water-jug ; or l)y walking to the windows 
and inviting other boys in the street below 
to come up and do likewise ; crying, " Here 
he is ! " " Come on ! " " Bring all your 
brothers ! " with other hospitable entreaties 
of that nature. 

We reached Washington at about half 
past six that evening, and had upon the 
way a beautiful view of the Capitol, Avhich 
is a fine building of the Corinthian order, 
placed upon a noble and commanding emi- 
nence. Arrived at the hotel, I saw no more 
of the place that niglit, being very tired, 
and glad to get to bed. 

Breakfast over next morning, I walk 
about the streets for an hour or two, and, 
coming home, throw up the window in the 
front and back, and look out. Here is 
Washington, fresh in my mind and under 
my eye. 

Take the worst parts of the City Road 
and Pentonville, or the straggling outskirts 
of Paris, where the houses are smallest, 
preserving all their oddities, but especially 
the small shops and dwellings, occupied in 
Pentonville (but not in Washington) by 
furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating- 
houses, and fanciers of birds. Burn the 
whole down ; build it up again in Avood 
and plaster; widen it a little; throw in 
part of St. John's Wood ; put green bUnds 



C2 



AMERICAN NOTES 



outside all the private houses, with a red 
curtain and a white one in every window ; 
plough up all the roads ; plant a great deal 
of coarse turf in every place where it 
ouglit not to be ; erect three handsome 
buildings in stone and marble anywhere, 
but the more entirely out of everybody's 
way the better ; call one the Post Office, 
one the Patent Office, and one the Treas- 
ury ; make it scorching hot in the morning, 
and freezing cold in the afternoon, with an 
occasional tornado of wind and dust ; leave 
a brick-field without the bricks, in all cen- 
tral places where a street may naturally be 
expected ; and that 's Washington. 

Tlie hotel in which we live is a long row 
of small houses fronting on the street, and 
opening at the back upon a common yard, 
in which hangs a great triangle. When- 
ever a servant is wanted, somebody beats 
on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, 
according to the number of the house in 
which his presence is required ; and as all 
the servants are always being wanted, and 
none of tliem ever come, this enlivening 
engine is in full performance the whole day 
through. Clothes are drying in this same 
yard , female slaves, with cotton handker- 
chiefs twisted round their heads, are run- 
ning to and fro on the hotel business ; black 
waiters cross and recross with dishes in 
their hands ; two great dogs are playing 
upon a mound of loose bricks in the centre 
of the little square ; a pig is turning up his 
stomach to the sun, and grunting, " That 's 
comfortable ! " and neither the men nor the 
women nor the dogs nor the pig nor any 
created creature takes the smallest notice 
of the triangle, which is tingling madly all 
the time. 

I walk to the front window, and look 
across the road upon a long, straggling row 
of houses, one story high, terminating near- 
ly opposite, but a little to the left, m a 
melancholy piece of waste ground with 
frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece 
of country that has taken to drinking, and 
has quite lost itself. Standing anyhow and 
all wrong, upon this open space, like some- 
thing meteoric that has fallen down from 
the moon, is an odd, lop-sided, one-eyed 
kind of wooden building, that looks like a 
church, with a llagstaflT as long as itself 
sticking out of a stce])le something larger 
than a tea-chest. Under the window is a 
small stand of coaches, whose slave-drivers 
are sunning themselves on the steps of our 
door, and talking idly together. The three 
most obtrusive houses near at hand are the 
three meanest. On one — a shoji, which 



never has anything in the window, and 
never has the door open — is painted, in 
large characters, " The City Lu^'CII." At 
another, which looks like the back way to 
somewhere else, but is an independent 
building in itself, oysters are procurable in 
every style. At the third, which is a very, 
very little tailor's shop, pants are fixed to 
order; or, in other words, pantaloons are 
made to measure. And that is our street 
inWashington. 

/it is sometimes called the City of Magnifi- 
cent Distances, but it might with greater 
propriety be termed the City of Magnifi- 
cent Intentions ; for it is only on taking a , 
bird's-eye view of it from the top of the 
Capitol, that one can at all comprehend 
the vast designs of its pi'ojector, an aspiring 
Frenchman. Spacious avenues, that begin 
in nothing and lead nowhere ; streets, mile 
long, that only want houses, roads, and 
inhabitants ; public buildings that need but 
a public to be complete ; and ornaments of 
great thoroughfares, which only lack great 
thoroughfares to ornament, — are its lead- 
ing features. One might fancy the season 
over, and most of the houses gone out of 
town forever with their masters. To the 
admirers of cities it is a Barmecide Feast ; 
a pleasant field for the imagination to rove 
in ; a monument raised to a deceased proj- 
ect, with not even a legible inscription to 
record its departed greatness. ] 

Such as it is it is likely-- to remain. It 
was originally chosen for the seat of gov- 
ernment as a means of averting the con- 
flicting jealousies and interests of the dif- 
ferent States ; and very probably, too, as 
Leing remote from mobs,— a^CQnsiderajiQn. 
not to be slighted, even in America^ It 
has no trade or commerce of its own ; hav- 
ing little or no jiopulation beyond the Presi- 
dent and his establishment, the members 
of the legislature who reside there during 
the session, the government clerks and of- 
ficers emjiloyed in the various departments, 
the keepers of the hotels and boarding- 
houses, and the tradesmen who supply their 
tables. It is very unhealthy. Few people 
would live in Washington, I take it, who 
were not obliged to reside there ; and the 
tides of emigration and speculation, those 
rapid and regardless currents, are little 
likely to flow at any time towards such dull 
and sluggish water. 

The principal features of the Capitol are, 
of course, the two Houses of Assembly. 
But there is, besides, in the centre of the 
building, .a fine rotunda, ninety-six feet in 
diameter, and ninety-six high, whose circu- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



lar wall is divided into compartments, or- 
namented by historical pictures. Four of 
these have foi- their subjects prominent 
events in the Revolutionary struggle. They 
were painted by Colonel Trumbull, himself 
a member of Washington's stalF at the time 
of their occurrence ; from which circum- 
stance they derive a peculiar interest of 
their own. In this same hall Mr. Green- 
ough's large statue of Washington has been 
lately placed. It has great merits, of course, 
but it struck me as being rather strained and 
violent for its subject. I could wish, how- 
ever, to have seen it in a better light than 
it can ever be viewed in where it stands. 

There is a very pleasant and commodi- 
ous library in the Capitol ; and from a bal- 
cony in front the bird's-eye view of which 
I have just spoken may be had, together 
with a beautiful prospect of the adjacent 
country. In one of the ornamented por- 
tions of the building there is a figure of Jus- 
tice ; whei'eunto, the Guide Book says, " the 
artist at first contemplated giving more of 
nudity, but he was warned that the public 
sentiment in this country would not admit 
of it, and in his caution he has gone, per- 
haps, into the opposite extreme." Poor 
Justice ! she has been made to wear much 
stranger garments in America than those 
she pines in, in the Capitol. Let us hope 
that she has changed her dress-maker since 
they were fashioned, and that the public 
sentiment of the country did not cut out 
the clothes she hides her lovely figure in 
just now. 

The House of Representatives is a beau- 
tiful and spacious hall of semicircular shape, 
supported by handsome pillars. One part 
of the gallery is appropriated to the ladies, 
and there they sit in front rows, and come 
in and go out. as at a play or concert. The 
chair is canopied, and raised considerably 
above the floor of the house;, and every 
member has an easy-chair and a writing- 
desk to himself; which is denounced by 
some people out of doors as a most unfortu- 
nate and injudicious arrangement, tending 
to long sittings and prosaic speeches. It is 
an elegant chamber to look at, but a singu- 
larly bad one for all purposes of hearing. 
The Senate, which is smaller, is free from 
this objection, and is exceedingly well 
adapted to the uses for which it is designed. 
The sittings, I need hardly add, take place 
in the day ; and the parliamentary forms 
are modelled on those of the old country. 

I was sometimes asked, in my progress 
through other places, whether I had not 
been very much impressed by the heads of 



the lawmakers at Washington ; meaniufr 
not their chiefs and leaders, but literally 
their individual and personal heads, where- 
on their hair grew, and whereby the phren- 
ological character of each legislator was ex- 
pressed ; and I almost as often struck my 
questioner dumb with indignant consterna- 
tion by answering, " No, that I did n't re- 
member being at all overcome." As I must, 
at whatever hazard, repeat the avowal 
here, I will follow it up by relating my im- 
pressions on this subject in as few words as 



In the first place — it may be from some 
imperfect development of my organ of ven- 
eration — I do not remember having ever 
fainted away, or having even been moved to 
tears of joyful pride, at sight of any legisla- 
tive body. I have borne the House of Com- 
mons like a man, and have yielded to no 
weakness but slumber in the House of 
Lords. 1 have seen elections for borough 
and county, and have never been impelled 
(no matter which party won) to damage my 
hat by throwing it up into the air in tri- 
umph, or to crack my voice by shouting 
forth any reference to our Glorious Consti- 
tution, to the noble purity of our indepen- 
dent voters, or the unimpeachable integrity 
of our independent members. Having with- 
stood such strong attacks upon my fortitude, 
it is possible that I may be of a cold and 
insensible temperament, amounting to ici- 
ness, in such matters ; and therefore my im- 
pressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at 
Washington must be received with such 
grains of allowance as this free confession 
may seem to demand. 

Did I see in this public body an assem- 
blage of men bound together in the sacred 
names of Liberty and Freedom, and so as- 
serting the chaste dignity of those twin god- 
desses, in all their discussions, as to exalt at 
once the Eternal Principles to which their 
names are given, and their own character, 
and the character of their countrymen, in 
the admiring eyes of the whole world ? 

It was but a week since an aged, gray- 
haired man, a lasting honor to the land that 
gave him birth, who has done good service 
to his country, as his forefathers did, and 
who will be remembered scores upon scores 
of years after the worms bred in its corrup- 
tion are but so many grains of dust, — it 
was but a week since this old man had stood 
for days upon his trial before this very body, 
charged with having dared to assert the in- 
famy of that traffic which has for its ac- 
cursed merchandise men and women and 
their unborn children. Yes. And publicly 



AMERICAN NOTES 



exhibited in the same city all the while, 
gilded, framed, and glazed, hung up for 
general admiration, shown to strangers not 
with shame, but pride, its face not turned 
towards the wall, itself not taken down and 
burned, is the Unanimous Declaration of 
The Thirteen United States of America, 
which solennily declares that All Men are 
created Ecjual, and are endowed by their 
Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life, 
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness ! 

It was not a month since this same body 
had sat calmly by, and heard a man, one of 
themselves, Avith oaths Avhich beggars in 
tlieir drink reject, threaten to cut another's 
throat fi-om ear to ear. There he sat among 
them ; not crushed by the general feeling 
of the assembly, but as good a man as any. 

There was but a week to come, and an- 
other of that body, for doing his duty to 
tliose who sent him there ; for claiming in a 
Republic the Liberty and Freedom of ex- 
pressing their sentiments, and making 
known their prayer ; would be tried, found 
guilty, and have strong censure jjassed upon 
him by the rest. Ills was a grave offence 
indeed ; for, years before, he had risen up 
and said, " A gang of male and female 
slaves for sale, warranted to breed like cat- 
tle, linked to each other by iron fetters, are 
passing now along the open street beneath 
the windows of your Temple of Equality ! 
Look ! " But there are many kinds of hun- 
ters engaged in the Pursuit of Happiness, 
and they go variously armed. It is the 
Inalienable Right of some among them, 
to take the field after their Happiness, 
equipped with cat and cart-whip, stocks 
and iron collar, and to shout their view 
halloa ! (always in praise of Liberty) to the 
music of clanking chains and bloody stripes. 

Where sat the many legislators of coarse 
threats, of words and blows such as coal- 
heavers deal upon each other, when they 
forget their breeding ? On every side. 
Every session had its anecdotes of that 
kind, and the actors were all there. 

Did I recognize in this assembly a body 
of men who, applying themselves in a new 
world to correct some of the falsehoods and 
vices of the old, purified the avenues to 
Public Life, paved the dirty ways to Place 
and Power, debated and made laws for the 
Common Good, and had no party but their 
Country ? 

I saw in them the wheels that move the 
meanest perversion of virtuous Political Ma- 
chinery that the worst tools ever wrought. 
Desj)lcable trickery at elections; under- 
handed tamperings with public officers ; 



cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scur- 
rilous newspapers lor shields, and hired pens 
for daggers ; shameful trucklings to merce- 
nary knaves, whose claim to be considered 
is, that every day and week they sow new 
crops of ruin with their venal types, which 
are the dragon's teeth of yore, in everything 
but sharpness ; aidings and abettlngs of every 
bad inclination in the popular mind, and art- 
ful suppressions of all its good influences : 
such things as these, and, in a word, Dishon- 
est Faction in its most depraved and most 
unblushing form, stared out from every cor- 
ner of the crowded hall. 

Did I see among them the intelligence and 
refinement, the true, honest, patriotic heart, 
of America ? Here and there were drops of 
its blood and life, but they scarcely colored 
the stream of desperate adventurers which 
sets that way for profit and for pay. It is 
the game of these men, and of their profli- 
gate organs, to make the strife of politics so 
fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all self- 
respect in worthy men, that sensitive and 
delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, 
and they, and such as they, be left to battle 
out their selfish views unchecked. And thus 
this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, 
and they who in other countries would, from 
their intelligence and station, most aspire to 
make the laws, do here recoil the furthest 
from that degradation. 

That there are among the representatives 
of the people in both Houses, and among all 
parties, some men of high character and 
great abilities, I need not say. Tiie foremost 
among those politicians who are known in 
Europe have been already described, and I 
see no reason to depart from the rule I have 
laid down for my guidance, of abstaining 
from all mention of individuals. It will be 
sufficient to add, that to the most favorable 
accounts that have been written of them I 
more than fully and most heartily subscribe ; 
and that personal intercourse and free com- 
munication have bred within me, not the re- 
sult predicted in the very doubtful proverb, 
but increased admiration and respect. They 
are striking men to look at, hard to di'ceive, 
prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in 
varied accomplishment, Indians in fire of eye 
and gesture, Americans in strong and gen- 
erous impulse ,• and they as well represent 
the honor and wisdom of their country at 
home as the distinguished gentleman who is 
now its minister at the British Court sustains 
its highest character abroad. 

I visited both houses nearly every day 
during my stay in Washington. On my 
initiatory visit to the House of Representa- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



tives, they divided against a decision of the 
chair ; but the chair won. The second time 
I went, the member who was speaking, be- 
ing interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as 
one child would in quarrelling with another, 
and added, " that he would make honorable 
gentlemen opposite sing out a little more on 
the other side of their mouths presently." 
But interruptions are rare ; the speaker be- 
ing usually heard in silence. There are 
more quarrels than with us, and more 
threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed 
to exchange in any civilized society of which 
we have record ; but fixrm-yard imitations 
have not as yet been imported from the Par- 
liament of the United Kingdom. The feat- 
ure in oratory which appears to be the most 
practised and most relished is the constant 
repetition of the same idea or shadow of an 
idea in fresh words ; and the inquiry out of 
doors is not, " What did he say V " but, 
" How long did he speak ? " These, how- 
ever, are but enlai'gements of a principle 
which prevails elsewhere. 

The Senate is a dignified and decorous 
body, and its proceedings are conducted 
with much gravity and order. Both houses 
are handsomely carpeted ; but the state to 
which these carpets are reduced by the uni- 
versal disregard of the spittoon with which 
every honorable member is accommodated, 
and the extraordinary improvements on the 
pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon 
it in every direction, do not admit of being 
described. I will merely observe, that I 
strongly recommend all strangers not to look 
at the tloor ; and if they happen to drop any- 
thing, though it be their purse, not to pick it 
up with an ungloved hand on any account. 

It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, 
to say the least, to see so many honorable 
membei-s with swelled faces ; and it is 
scarcely less remarkable to discover that 
this appearance is caused by the quantity 
of tobacco they contrive to stow within the 
hollow of the cheek. It is strange enough, 
too, to see an honorable gentleman leaning- 
back in his tilted chair, with his legs on 
the desk before him, shaping a convenient 
" plug " with his penknife, and when it is 
quite ready for use, shooting the old one 
from his mouth, as from a popgun, and 
clapping the new one in its place. 

I was surprised to observe that even 
steady old chewers of great experience are 
not always good marksmen, which has 
rather inclined me to doubt that general 
proficiency with the rifle of which we have 
heard so much in England. Several gen- 
tlemen called upon me who, in the coui'se 
5 



of conversation, frequently missed the spit- 
toon at five paces, and one (but he was cer- 
tainly short - sighted) mistook the closed 
sash for the open window, at three. On 
another occasion, when I dined out, and 
was sitting with two ladies and some gen- 
tlemen round a fire before dinner, one of 
the company fell short of the fireplace, six 
distinct times. I am disjiosed to think, 
however, that this was occasioned by his 
not aiming at that object, as there was a 
white marble hearth before the fender, 
which was more convenient, and may have 
suited his purpose better. 

The Patent Office at Washington fur- 
nishes an extraoi'dlnary example of Amer- 
ican enterpi'ise and ingenuity : for the im- 
mense number of models it contains are the 
accumulated inventions of only five years, 
the whole of the previous collection having 
been destroyed by fire. The elegant struct- 
ure in which they are arranged is one of 
design rather than execution, for there is 
but one side erected out of four, though 
the works are stopped. The Post Oflice 
is a very compact and very beautiful build- 
ing. In one of the deiaartments, among a 
collection of rare and curious articles, are 
deposited the presents which have been 
made fi:om time to time to the American 
ambassadors at foreign courts by the various 
potentates to whom they were the accred- 
ited agents of the Republic, — gifts which 
by the law they are not permitted to retain. 
I confess that I looked upon this as a very 
painful exhibition, and one by no means 
flattering to the national standard of hon- 
esty and honor. That can scarcely be a 
high state of moral feeling which imagines 
a gentleman of repute and station likely to 
be corrupted, in the discharge of his duty, 
by the present of a snuff-box, or a richly 
mounted sword, or an Eastern shawl ; and 
surely the Nation who reposes confidence in 
her appointed servants is likely to be better 
served than she who makes them the sub- 
ject of such very mean and paltry suspi- 
cions. 

At Georgetown, in the suburbs, there is 
a Jesuit College, delightfully situated, and, 
so far as I had an opportunity of seeing, 
well managed. Many persons who are not 
members of the Romish Church avail them- 
selves, I believe, of these institutions, and 
of the advantageous opportunities they af- 
ford for the education of their children. 
The heights in this neighborhood, above 
the Potomac River, are very picturesque, 
and are free, I should conceive, from some 
of the insalubrities of Washington. The 



6G 



AMERICAN NOTES 



air, at tliat elevation, was quite cool and 
refreshing, when in the city it was burning 
hot. 

The President's mansion is more like an 
English club-house, both within and with- 
out, than any other kind of establishment 
with which I can compare it. The orna- 
mental ground about it ha.s been laid out 
in garden walks. They are pretty, and 
agreeable to the eye, though they have that 
uncomfortable air of having been made yes- 
terday which is far from favorable to the 
display of such beauties. 

My first visit to this house was on the 
morning after my arrival, when I was car- 
ried thither by an official gentleman, who 
was so kind as to charge himself with my 
presentation to the President. 

We entered a large hall, and, having 
twice or thrice rung a bell which nobody 
answered, wallced without further ceremony 
through the rooms on the ground-floor, as 
divers other gentlemen (mostly with their 
hats on, and their hands in their pockets) 
were doing very leisurely. Some of these 
had ladies with them, to whom they were 
showing the premises ; others were lounging 
on the chairs and sofas ; others, in a perfect 
state of exhaustion from listlessness, were 
yawning drearily. The greater portion of 
this assemblage were rather asserting their 
supremacy than doing anything else, as they 
had no particular business there that any- 
body knew of. A few were closely eying 
the movables, as if to make quite sure that 
the President (who was far from popular) 
had not made away with any of the furni- 
ture, or sold the fixtures for his private 
benefit. 

After glancing at these loungers, who 
were scattered over a pretty drawing-room, 
opening upon a terrace which commanded 
a beautiful prospect of the river and the ad- 
jacent country, and who were sauntering 
too about a larger state-room called the 
Eastern Drawing-room, we went up stairs 
into another chaniljer, where were certain 
visitors waiting for audiences. At sight of 
my conductor, a black, in plain clothes 
and yellow slijipers, who was gliding noise- 
lessly about, and whispering messages in 
the ears of the more impatient, made a sign 
of recognition, and glided oiF to announce 
him. 

We had previously looked into another 
chamber fitted all round witli a great bare 
wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files 
of newspapers, to which sundry gentlemen 
were referring. But there were no such 
means of beguiling the time in this apart- 



ment, which was as unpromising and tire- 
some as any waiting-room in one of our 
public establishments, or any physician's 
dining-room during his hours of consultation 
at home. 

There were some fifteen or twenty per- 
sons in the room. One, a tall, wiry, muscu- 
lar old man from the West, sunljurnt and 
swarthy, with a brown-white hat on bis 
knees and a giant umbrella resting between 
his legs, who sat bolt upright in his chair, 
frowning steadily at the carpet, and twitch- 
ing the hard lines about his mouth, as if he 
had made up his mind " to fix " the Presi- 
dent on what he had to say, and would n't 
bate him a grain. Another, a Kentucky 
farmer, six feet six in height, witli his bat 
on, and his hands under his coat-tails, who 
leaned against the wall and kicked the floor 
with his heel, as though he had Time's head 
under his shoe, and were literally "killing" 
him. A third, an oval-faced, bilious-looking 
man, with sleek black hair cropped close, 
and whiskers and beard shaved down to 
blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick 
stick, and from time to time took it out of 
his mouth to see how it was getting on. A 
fourth did nothing but whistle. A fifth did 
nothing but spit. And indeed all these gen- 
tlemen were so very persevering and ener- 
getic in this latter particular, and bestowed 
their favors so abundantly upon the carpet, 
that I take it for granted the Presidential 
housemaids have high wages, or, to speak 
more genteelly, an ample amount of " com- 
pensation," which is the American word for 
salary, in the case of all public servants. 

We had not waited in this room many 
minutes before the black messenger re- 
turned, and conducted us into another of 
smaller dimensions, where, at a l)usiness-like 
table covered with papers, sat the President 
himself. lie looked somewhat worn and 
anxious, and well he might, being at war 
with everybody ; but the expression of his 
face was mild and pleasant, and his manner 
was remarkaljly unaifected, gentlemanly, 
and agreeable. I thought that in his whole 
carriage and demeanor he became his sta- 
tion singularly well. 

Being advised that the sensible etiquette 
of the republican court admitted of a trav- 
eller like myself declining, without any im- 
propriety, an invitation to dinner, which did 
not reach me until I had concluded my ar- 
rangements for leaving Washington some 
days before that to which it referred, I only 
returned to this house once. It was on the 
occasion of one of those general assemblies 
which are held on certain nights between 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



67 



the hours of nine and twelve o'clock, and 
are called, rather oddly. Levees. 

I went with my wife at about ten. There 
was a jDretty dense crowd of carriages and 
people in the court-yard, and, so far as I 
could make out, there were no very clear 
regulations for the taking up or setting 
down of company. There were certainly 
no policemen to soothe startled horses, 
either by sawing at their bridles or flourish- 
ing truncheons in their eyes ; and I am 
ready to make oath that no inoffensive per- 
sons were knocked violently on the head, 
or poked acutely in their backs or stomachs, 
or brought to a stand-still by any such gen- 
tle means, and then taken into custody for 
not moving on. But there was no confusion 
or disorder. Our carriage reached the 
porch in its turn, without any blustering, 
swearing, shouting, backing, or other dis- 
tm-bance, and we dismounted with as much 
ease and comfort as though we had been 
escorted by the whole Metropolitan Force 
from A to Z inclusive. 

The suite of rooms on the ground-floor 
were lighted up, and a military band was 
playing in the hall. In the smaller draw- 
ing-room, the centre of a circle of company, 
were the President and his daughter-in-law, 
who acted as the lady of the mansion ; and 
a very interesting, graceful, and accom- 
plished lady too. One gentleman who stood 
among this group appeared to take upon 
himself the functions of a master of the 
ceremonies. I saw no other officers or at- 
tendants, and none were needed. 

The great drawing-room, which I have 
already mentioned, and the other chambers 
on the ground-floor, were crowded to ex- 
cess. The company was not, in our sense 
of the term, select, for it comprehended per- 
sons of very many grades and classes ; nor 
was there any great display of costly attire ; 
indeed some of the costumes may have been, 
for aught I know, grotesque enough. But 
the decorum and propriety of behavior 
which prevailed were unbroken by any rude 
or disagreeable incident; and every man, 
even among the miscellaneous crowd in the 
hall who were admitted, without any orders 
or tickets, to look on, appeared to feel that 
he was a part of the Institution, and was re- 
sponsible for its preserving a becoming char- 
acter, and appearing to the best advantage. 

That these visitors, too, whatever their 
station, were not without some refinement 
of taste and appreciation of intellectual 
gifts, and gratitude to those men who by 
the peaceful exercise of great abilities shed 
new charms and associations ujjon the 



homes of their countrymen, and elevate 
their character in other lands, was most ear- 
nestly testified by their reception of Wash- 
ington Irving, my dear friend, who had re- 
cently been appointed Minister at the court 
of Spain, and who was among them that 
night, in his new character, for the first and 
last time before going abroad. I sincerely 
believe that, in all the madness of American 
politics, few public men would have been so 
earnestly, devotedly, and affectionately ca- 
ressed as this most charming writer ; and I 
have seldom respected a public assembly 
more than I did this eager tlirong, when I 
saw them turning with one mind from noisy 
orators and officers of state, and flocking with 
a generous and honest impulse round the 
man of quiet pursuits ; proud in his promo- 
tion, as reflecting back upon their country, 
and grateful to him with their whole hearts 
for the store of graceful fancies he had 
poured out among them. Long may he 
dispense such treasures with unsparing 
hand ; and long may they remember him 
as worthily ! 



The term we had assigned for the dura- 
tion of our stay in Washington was now at 
an end, and we were to begin to travel ; 
for the railroad distances we had traversed 
yet, in journeying among these older towns, 
are on that great continent looked upon as 
nothing. 

I had at first intended going South, — to 
Charleston. But when I came to consider 
the length of time which this journey would 
occupy, and the premature heat of the sea- 
son, which even at Washington had been 
often very trying ; and weighed moreover, 
in my own mind, the pain of living in the 
constant contemplation of slavery, against 
the more than doubtful chances of my ever 
seeing it, in the time I had to spare, stripped 
of the disguises in which it would certainly 
be dressed, and so adding any item to the 
host of facts already heaped together on 
the subject; I began to listen to old whis- 
perings which had often been present to 
me at home in England, when I little 
thought of ever being here, and to dream 
again of cities growing up, like palaces in 
fairy tales, among the wilds and forests of 
the West. 

The advice I received in most quarters, 
when I began to yield to my desire of trav- 
elling towards that jioint of the compass, 
was, according to custom, sufficiently cheer- 
less ; my companion being threatened with 
more perils, dangers, and discomforts than 



68 



AMERICAN NOTES 



T can romember or would catalogue if I 
could ; but of which it will be sufficient to 
remark that blowings-up in steamboats and 
breakings-down in coaches were among the 
least. But having a Western route sketched 
out for me by the best and kindest authori- 
ty to which I could have resorted, and put- 
ting no great faith in these discourage- 
ments, I soon determined on my jilan of 
action. 

This was to travel South only to Rich- 
mond in Virginia ; and then to turn, and 
shape our course for the Far-West ; whither 
I beseech the reader's company in a new 
chapter. 



CHAPTER IX. 

A NIGHT STEAMER ON THE POTOMAC RIV- 
ER. VIRGINIA ROAD, AND A BLACK 
DRIVER. RICHMOND. BALTIMORE. 

THE IIARRISBURG MAIL, AND A GLIMPSE 
OF THE CITY. A CANAL-BOAT. 

We were to proceed in the first instance 
by steamboat ; and as it is usual to sleep on 
board, in consequence of the starting-hour 
being four o'clock in the morning, we went 
down to where she lay, at that very uncom- 
fortable time for such expeditions when 
slippers are most valuable, and a familiar 
bed, in the perspective of an hour or two, 
looks uncommonly pleasant. 

It is ten o'clock at night, say half past 
ten ; moonlight, warm, and dull enough. 
The steamer (not unlike a child's Noah's 
ark in form, with the machinery on the 
top of the roof) is riding lazily up and 
down, and bumping clumsily against the 
wooden pier, as the ripple of the river tri- 
tles with its unwieldy cai'cass. The wharf 
is some distance from the city. There is 
nobody down here ; and one or two dull 
lamps upon the steamer's decks are the 
only signs of life remaining, when our 
coach has driven away. As soon as our 
footsteps are heard upon the planks, a fat 
negress, particularly favored by nature in 
respect of bustle, emerges from some dark 
stairs, and marshals my wife towards the 
ladies' cabin, to which retreat she goes, fol- 
lowed by a mighty bale of cloaks and great- 
coats. I valiantly resolve not to go to bed 
at all, but to walk up and down the pier 
till morning. 

1 l)egin my promenade, — thinking of all 
kinds of distant things and persons, and of 
nothing near, — and pace up and down for 
half an hour. Then I go on board again ; 



and, getting into the light of one of the 
lamps, look at my watch and think it must 
have stopped ; and wonder what has be- 
come of the faithful secretary whom I 
brought along with me from Boston. He 
is supping with our late landlord (a Field 
Marshal, at least, no doubt) in honor of our 
departure, and may be two hours longer. 
I walk again, but it gets duller and duller ; 
the moon goes down ; next June seems 
farther olf in the dark ; and the echoes of 
my footsteps make me nervous. It has 
turned cold, too ; and walking up and down 
without anj^ companion in such lonely cir- 
cumstances is but jioor amusement. So I 
break my stanch resolution, and think it 
may be, perhaps, as well to go to bed. 

I go on board again, open the door of 
the gentlemen's cabin, and walk in. Some- 
how or other — from its being so quiet, I 
suppose — I have taken it into my head 
that there is nobody there. To my horror 
and amazement, it is full of sleepers in 
every stage, shape, attitvide, and variety of 
slumber, — in the berths, on the chairs, on 
the floors, on the tables, and particularly 
round the stove, my detested enemy. I 
take another step forward, and slip upon 
the shining face of a black steward, who 
lies rolled in a blanket on the floor. He 
jumps up, grins, half in pain and half in 
hospitality ; whispers my own name in my 
ear ; and, groping among the sleepers, leads 
me to my berth. Standing beside it, I 
count these slumbering passengers, and get 
past forty. There is no use in going far- 
ther, so I begin to undress. As the chairs 
are all occupied, and there is nothing else 
to put my clothes on, I deposit them upon 
the ground ; not without soiling my hands, 
for it is in the same condition as the carpets 
in the Capitol, and from the same cause. 
Having but partially undressed, I clamber 
on my shelf, and hold the curtain open for 
a few minutes while I look round on all my 
fellow-travellers again. That done, I let 
it fall on them and on the world, turn 
round, and go to sleep. 

I wake, of course, when we get under 
way, for there is a good deal of noise. The 
day is then just breaking. Everybody 
wakes at the same time. Some are self- 
possessed directly, and some are much per- 
plexed to make out where they are, until 
they have rubbed their eyes, and. leaning 
on one elbow, looked about them. Some 
yawn, some groan, nearly all spit, and a 
few get up. I am among the risers, for it 
is easy to feel, without going into the fresh 
air, that the atmosphere of the cabin is vile 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



G9 



in the last degree. T huddle on my clothes, 
go down into the fore-cabin, get shaved by 
the barber, and wash myself. The washing 
and dressing apparatus for the passengers 
generally consists of two jack-towels, three 
small wooden basins, a keg of water and a 
ladle to serve it out with, six square inches of 
looking-glass, two ditto ditto of yellow soap, a 
comb and brush for the head, and nothing 
for the teeth. Everybody uses the comb 
and brush, except myself Everybody 
stares to see me using my own ; and two or 
three gentlemen are strongly disposed to 
banter me on ray prejudices, but don't. 
When I have made my toilet, I go upon 
the hurricane-deck, and set in for two hours 
of hard walking up and down. The sun is 
rising brilliantly ; we are passing Mount 
Vernon, where Washington lies buried ; 
the river is wide and rapid, and its banks 
are beautiful. All the glory and splendor 
of the day are coming on, and growing 
brighter every minute. 

At eight o'clock we breakfast in the cabin 
where I passed the night, but the windows 
and doors are all thrown open, and now it 
is fresh enough. There is no hurry or 
greediness apparent in the despatch of the 
meal. It is longer than a travelling-break- 
fast with us, more orderlv, and more polite. 

Soon after nine o'clock we come to Po- 
tomac Creek, where we are to land, and 
then comes the oddest part of the journey. 
Seven stage-coaches are preparing to carry 
us on. Some of them are ready, some of 
them are not ready. Some of the drivers 
are blacks, some whites. There are four 
horses to each coach, and all the horses, 
harnessed or unharnessed, are there. The 
passengei-s are getting out of the steamboat 
and into the coaches ; the luggage is be- 
ing transferred in noisy wheelbarrows ; the 
horses are frightened, and impatient to start ; 
the black drivers are chattering to them 
like so many monkeys, and the white ones 
whooping like so many drovers ; for the 
main thing to be done in all kinds of hostlei-- 
ing here is to make as much noise as pos- 
sible. The coaches are something like the 
French coaches, but not nearly so good. In 
lieu of springs, they are hung on bands of 
the strongest leather. There is very little 
choice or difference between them ; and 
the)- may be likened to the car portion of 
the swings at an English fair, roofed, put 
upon axle-trees and wheels, and curtained 
with painted canvas. They are covered 
with mud from the roof to the wheel-tire, 
and have never been cleaned since they 
were first built. 



The tickets we have received on board 
the steamboat are marked No. 1, so we be- 
long to coach No. 1. I throw my coat on 
the box, and hoist my wife and her maid 
into the inside. It has only one step, and 
that, being about a yard from the ground, 
is usually approached by a chair ; when 
there is no chair, ladies trust in Providence. 
The coach holds nine inside, having a seat 
across from door to door, where we in Eng- 
land put our legs ; so that there is only one 
feat more difficult in the performance than 
getting in, and that is getting out again. 
There is only one outside passenger, and 
he sits upon the box. As I am that one, I 
climb up, and, while they are strapping the 
luggage on the roof, and heaping it into a 
kind of tray behind, have a good opportu- 
nity of looking at the driver. 

He is a negi-o, — very black indeed. He 
is dressed in a coarse pepper-and-salt suit 
excessively patched and darned (particular- 
ly at the knees), gray stockings, enormous 
unblacked high-low shoes, and very short 
trousers. He has two odd gloves, — one of 
party-colored worsted, and one of leather. 
He has a very short whip, broken in the 
middle and bandaged up with string. And 
yet he wears alow-crowned, broad-brimmed 
black hat, faintly shadowing forth a kind of 
insane imitation of an English coachman ! 
But somebody in authority cries, " Go 
ahead ! " as I am making tbese observa- 
tions. The mail takes the lead in a four- 
horse wagon, and all the coaches follow in 
procession, headed by No. 1. 

By the way, whenever an Englishman 
would cry, " AH right ! " an American cries, 
" Go ahead ! " which is somewhat expressive 
of the national character of the two coun- 
tries. 

Tlie first half-mile of the road is over 
bridges made of loose planks laid across two 
parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels 
roll over them, and in the river. The riv- 
er has a clayey bottom and is full of holes, 
so that half a horse is constantly disappear- 
ing unexpectedly, and can't be found again 
for some time. 

But we get past even this, and come to 
the road itself, which is a series of alternate 
swamjis and gravel-pits. A tremendous 
place is close before us, the black driver 
rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very 
round, and looks straight between the two 
leaders, as if he were saying to himself, 
" We have done this often before, but now 
I think we shall have a crash." He takes 
a rein in each hand, jerks and pulls at both, 
and dances on the splashboard with both 



ro 



AMERICAN NOTES 



feet (keeping Ins seat, of course) like the 
late lamented Ducrow on two of his fiery 
coursers. We come to the spot, sink down 
in the mire nearly to the coach windows, 
tilt on one side at an angle of forty-five de- 
grees, and stick there. The insides scream 
dismally ; the coach stops ; the horses floun- 
der ; all the other six coaches stop ; and 
their four-and-twenty horses flounder like- 
wise, — but merely for company, and In 
sympathy with ours. Then the following 
circumstances occur. 

Black Dkivpui (to the horses). " Hi ! " 

Nothing iiappens. Insides scream again. 

Black Dki veu (to the horses). " Ho ! " 

Horses plunge, and splash the black driv- 
er. 

Gentlkmax ixside (looking out). 
" Why, what on airth — " 

Gentleman receives a variety of splashes 
and draws his head in again, without finish- 
ing his question, or waiting for an answer. 

"Black Drivek (still to the horses). 
" Jiddy ! Jiddy ! " 

Horses pull violently, drag the coach out 
of the hole, and draw It up a bank, so steep 
that the black driver's legs fly up Into the 
air, and he goes back among the luggage on 
the roof. But he Immediately recovers him- 
self, and cries (still to the horses), — 

" Pill ! " 

No effect. On the contrary, the coach 
begins to roll back upon No. 2, which rolls 
back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 
4, and so on, until No. 7 Is heard to curse 
and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile be- 
hind. 

Black Driver (louder than before), 
" Pill ! " 

Horses make another struggle to get up 
the bank, and again the coach rolls back- 
ward. 

Black Driver (louder than before). 
" Pe-e-e-Ul ! " 

Horses make a desperate struggle. 

Black Driver (recovering spirits). 
" Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill ! " 

Horses make another effort. 

Black Driver (with great vigor). 
"Ally Loo! Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. 
Ally Loo!" 

Hoi-ses almost do It. 

Black Driver (with his eyes starting 
out of his head). " Lee, den, Lee, dere. 
Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. 
Lee-e-e-e-e ! " 

They run up the bank, and go down 
again on tlie other side at a fearful pace. 
It Is Impossible to stop them, and at the 
bottom there Is a deep hollow, full of water. 



The coach rolls frightfully. The insides 
scream. The mud and water fly about us. 
The black driver dances hke a madman. 
Suddenly we are all right by some extraor- 
dinary means, and stop to breathe. 

A black Irlend of the black driver is sit- ' 
ting on a fence. The black driver recog- i 
nizes him by twirling his head round and I 
round like a harlequin, rolling his eyes, I 
shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from I 
ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, 
and says : — 

" AVe shall get you through, sa, like a 
fiddle, and hope a please you when we get 
you through, sa. Old 'ooman at home, sir," 
— chuckling very much. " Outside gentle- 
man, sa, he oflen remember old 'ooman at 
home, sa," grinning again. 

" Ay, ay, we '11 take care of the old wo- 
man. Don't be afraid." 

The black driver grins again, but there 
Is another hole, and beyond that another 
bank, close before us. So he stops short ; 
cries (to the horses again), " Easy. Easy 
den. Ease. Steady. Hi. Jiddy. Pill. 
Ally. Loo," but never " Lee ! " until we 
are reduced to the very last extremity, and 
are in the midst of difficulties, extrication 
from whieh appears to be all but impossible. 

And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts 
In tAvo hours and a half; breaking no bones, 
though bruising a great many ; and in short 
getting through the distance " like a fid- 
dle." 

This singular kind of coaching terminates 
at Fredericksburg, whence there Is a rail- 
way to Richmond. The tract of country 
through which It takes its course was once 
productive ; but the soil has been exhausted 
by the system of employing a great amount 
of slave-labor in forcing crops, without 
strengthening the land ; and it is now little 
better than a sandy desert overgrown with 
trees. Dreary and uninteresting as its as- 
pect Is, I was glad to the heart to find any- 
thing on which one of the curses of this hor- 
rible Institution has fallen ; and had greater 
pleasure in contemplating the withered 
ground than the richest and most thriving 
cultivation In the same place could possibly 
have afforded me. 

In this district as in all others where slav- 
ery sits brooding, (I have frequently heard 
this admitted, even by those who are its 
warmest advocates,) there is an air of ruin 
and decay abroad which is inseparable from 
the system. The barns and out-houses are 
mouldering away ; the sheds are patched 
and half roofless ; the log-cabins (built in 
Virginia with external chimneys made of 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



71 



clay or wood) are squalid in the last de- 
gree. There is no look of decent comfort 
anywhere. The miserable stations by the 
railway side ; the great wild wood-yards, 
whence the engine is supplied with fuel ; 
the negro children rolling on the ground 
befoi'c the cabin doors, with dogs and pigs ; 
the biped beasts of burden slinking past ; — 
gloom and dejection are upon them all. 

In the negro car belonging to the train 
in which we made this journey were a 
mother and her children who had just been 
purchased ; the husband and father being 
left behind with their old owner. The 
children cried the whole way, and the 
mother was misery's picture. The champi- 
on of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of 
Happiness, who had bought them, rode in 
the same train, and, every time we stopped, 
got down to see that they were safe. The 
black in Sinbad's Travels, with one eye in 
the middle of his forehead which shone like 

burning coal, was nature's aristocrat com- 
pared with this white gentleman. 

It was betvfeen six and seven o'clock in 
the evening when we drove to the hotel ; 
in front of which, and on the top of the 
broad flight of steps leading to the door, 
two or three citizens Avere balancing them- 
selves on rocking-chairs, and smoking ci- 
gars. We found it a very large and ele- 
gant establishment, and were as well enter- 
tained as travellers need desire to be. The 
climate being a thirsty one, there Avas never 
at any hour of the day a scarcity of loungers 
in the spacious bar, or a cessation of the 
mixing of cool liquors ; but they were a 
merrier people here, and had musical in- 
struments playing to them o' nights, which 
it was a treat to hear again. 

The next day, and the next, we rode 
and walked about the town, which is de- 
lightfully situated on eight hills, overhang- 
ing James River, — a sparkling stream 
studded here and there with bright islands, 
or brawling over broken rocks. Although 
it was yet but the middle of March, the 
weather in this Southern temperature was 
extremely warm ; the peach-trees and mag- 
nolias were in full bloom, and the trees were 
green. In a low ground among the hills is 
a valley known as " Bloody Kim," from a 
terrible conflict with the Indians which 
once occurred there. It is a good place 
for such a struggle, and, like every other 
spot I saw associated with any legend of 
that wild people now so rapidly fading from 
the earth, interested me very much. 

The city is the seat of the local parlia- 
ment of Virginia, and in its shady legisla- 



tive halls some orators were drowsily hold- 
ing forth to the hot noonday. By dint of 
constant repetition, howevei-, these consti- 
tutional sights had very little more interest 
for me than so many parochial vestries ; 
and I was glad to exchange this one for a 
lounge in a well-arranged public library of 
some ten thousand volumes, and a visit to 
a tobacco manufactory, where the workmen 
were all slaves. 

I saw in this place the whole process of 
picking, rolling, pressing, drying, packing 
m. casks, and Ijranding. All the tobacco 
thus dealt with was in course of manufacture 
for chewing ; and one would have supposed 
there was enough in that one storehouse to 
have filled even the comprehensive jaws of 
America. In this form the weed looks like 
the oilcake on which we fatten cattle ; and, 
even without reference to its consequences, 
is sufficiently uninviting. 

Many of the workmen appeared to be 
strong men, and it is hardly necessary to 
add that they were all laboring quietly 
then. After two o'clock in the day, they 
are allowed to sing, a certain number at a 
time. The hour striking while I was there, 
some twenty sang a hymn in parts, and sang 
it by no means ill, — pursuing their work 
meanwhile. A bell rang as I was about to 
leave, and they all poured forth into a 
building on the opposite side of the street 
to dinner. I said, several times, that I 
should like to see them at their meal ; but 
as the gentleman to whom I mentioned this 
desire appeared to be suddenly taken rather 
deaf, I did not pursue the request. Of 
their appearance I shall have something to 
say presently. 

On the following day I visited a planta- 
tion, or farm, of about twelve hundred acres, 
on the opposite bank of the river. Here 
again, although I went down with the 
owner of the estate, to " the quarter," as 
that part of it irt which the slaves live is 
called, I was not invited to enter into any 
of their huts. All I saw of them was that 
they were very crazy, wretched cabins, 
near to which groups of half-naked chil- 
dren basked in the sun or wallowed on the 
dusty ground. But I believe that this gen- 
tleman is a considerate and excellent mas- 
ter, who inherited his fifty slaves, and is 
neither a buyer nor a seller of human stock ; 
and I am sure, from my own observation 
and conviction, that he is a kind-hearted, 
worthy man. 

The planter's house was an airy, rustic 
dwelling, that brought Defoe's des(!ription 
of such places strongly to my recollection. 



AMERICAN NOTES 



The day was very warm, but, the blinds 
being all closed, and the windows and doors 
set wide open, a shady coolness rustled 
through the rooms, which was exquisitely 
refreshing rfter the glare and heat without. 
Before the windows was an open piazza, 
where, in what they call the hot weath- 
er, — whatever that may be, — they sling 
hammocks, and drink and doze luxuriously. 
I do not know how their cool refections 
may taste within the hammocks, but, hav- 
ing experience, I can report that, out of 
them, the mounds of ices and the bowls of 
mint-julep and sherry-cobbler they make in 
these latitudes are refreshments never to be 
thought of afterwards, in summer, by those 
who would preserve contented minds. 

There are two bridges across the river ; 
one belongs to the railroad, and the other, 
which is a very crazy affixir, is the private 
property of some old lady in the neighbor- 
hood, who levies tolls upon the townspeople. 
Crossing this bridge, on my way back, I 
saw a notice painted on the gate, caution- 
ing all persons to drive slowly, under a 
penalty, if the offender were a white man, 
ofiive dollars, if a negro, fifteen stripes. 
^'''^The same decay and gloom that overhang 
the way by which it is approached hover 
above the town of Richmond. There are 
pretty villas and cheerful houses in its 
streets, and Nature smiles upon the country 
round ; but jostling its handsome residences, 
like slavery itself going hand in hand with 
many lofty virtues, are dejilorable tene- 
ments, fences unrepaired, walls crumbling 
into ruinous heaps. Hinting gloomily at 
things below the surface, these and many 
other tokens of the same description force 
themselves upon the notice, and are re- 
membered, with depressing influence, when 
livelier features are forgotten. 

To those who are happily unaccustomed 
to them, the countenances in the streets 
and laboring-places, too, are shocking. All 
men who know that there are laws against 
instructing slaves, of which the pains and 
penalties greatly exceed in their amount 
the fines imposed on those who maim and 
torture them, must be prepared to find 
their faces very low in the scale of intel- 
lectual expression.) But the darkness — 
not of skin, but mind — which meets the 
stranger's eye at every turn, the brutalizing 
and blotting out of all fairer characters 
traced by Nature's hand, immeasurably 
outdo his worst belief. That travelled 
creation of the great satirist's brain, who, 
fresh from living among horses, peered from 
a high casement down upon his own kind 



with trembling horror, was scarcely more 
repelled and daunted by the sight than 
those who look upon some of these faces 
for the first time must surely be. 

I left the last of them behind me in the 
person of a wretched drudge, who, after 
running to and fro all day till midnight, 
and moping in his stealthy winks of sleep 
upon the stairs between whiles, was wash- 
ing the dark passages at four o'clock in the 
morning ; and went upon my way with a 
grateful heart that I was not doomed to 
live where slavery was, and had never had 
my senses blunted to its wrongs and hor- 
rors in a slave-rocked cradle: 

It had been my intention to proceed by 
James River and Chesapeake Bay to Bal- 
timore ; but one of the steamboats being 
absent from her station through some acci- 
dent, and the means of conveyance being 
consequently rendered uncertain, we re- 
turned to Washington by the way we had 
come (there were two constables on board 
the steamboat, in pursuit of runaway slaves), 
and, halting there again for one night, went 
on to Baltimore next afternoon. 

The most comfortable of all the hotels 
of which I had any experience in the 
United States, and they were not a few, is 
Barnum's in that city ; where the English 
traveller will find curtains to his bed, for 
the first and probably the last time in 
America (this is a disinterested remark, 
for I never use them) ; and where he will 
be likely to have enough water for washing 
himself, which is not at all a common case. 
/ This capital of the State of Maryland 
IS a bustling, busy town, with a great deal 
of traffic of various kinds, and in particu- 
lar of water commerce. That portion of 
the town which it most favors is none of 
the cleanest, it is true ; but the upper part 
is of a very different character, and has 
many agreeable streets and public build- 
ings. The Washington Monument, which 
is a handsome pillar with a statue on its 
summit, the Medical College, and the Bat- 
tle Monument, in memory of an engage- 
ment with the British at North Point, are 
the most conspicuous among them. _ 

There is a very good prison in this city, 
and the State Penitentiary is also among 
its institutions. In this latter establishment 
there were two curious cases. 

One was that of a young man who had 
been tried for the murder of his father. 
The evidence was entirely circumstantial, 
and was very conflicting and doubtful ; nor 
was it possible to assign any motive which 
could have tempted him to the commission j 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



of so tremendous a crime. He had been 
tried twice ; and on the second occasion the 
jury felt so much hesitation in convicting 
him, that they found a verdict of man- 
slaughter, or murder in the second degree, 
which it could not possibly be, as there had, 
beyond all doubt, been no quarrel or prov- 
ocation, and, if he were guilty at all, he 
-was unquestionably guilty of murder in its 
broadest and worst signification. 

The remarkable feature in the case was, 
that if the unfortunate deceased were not 
really murdered by this own son of his, he 
must have been murdered by his own broth- 
er. The evidence lay, in a most remarka- 
ble manner, between those two. On all 
the suspicious points the dead man's brother 
was the witness ; all the explanations for 
the prisoner (some of them extremely plau- 
sible) went, by construction and inference, 
to inculpate him as plotting to fix the guilt 
upon his nephew. It must have been one 
of them ; and the jury had to decide be- 
tween two sets of suspicions, almost equally 
unnatural, unaccountable, and strange. 

The other case was that of a man who 
once went to a certain distiller's, and stole 
a copper measui'e containing a quantity of 
liquor. He was pursued and taken with 
the property in his possession, and was. sen- 
tenced to two years' imprisonment. On 
coming out of the jail, at the expiration of 
that term, he went back to the same dis- 
tiller's, and stole the same copper measure, 
containing the same cpantity of liquor. 
There was not the slightest reason to sup- 
pose that the man wished to return to pris- 
on ; indeed, everything but the commission 
of the offence made directly against that 
i^ssumption. There are only two ways of 
accounting for this extraordinary procced- 
One is, that, after undergoing so 
jluich for this copper measure, he conceived 
,he had established a sort of claim and right 
to it. The other, that, by dint of long 
thinking about, it had become a monomania 
with him, and had acquired a fascination 
which he found it impossible to resist, swell- 
ing from an Earthly Copper Gallon into an 
Ethereal Golden Vat. 

After remaining here a couple of days, I 
bound myself to a rigid adherence to the 
plan I had laid down so recently, and re- 
solved to sot forward on our Western jour- 
ney without any more delay. Accordingly, 
having reduced the luggage within the 
smallest possible compass (by sending back 
to New York, to be afterwards forwarded 
to us in Canada, so much of it as was not 
absolutely wanted), and having procured 



the necessary credentials to banking-houses 
on the way, and having moreover looked 
for two evenings at the setting sun, with as 
well-defined an idea of the country before 
us as if we had been going to travel into 
the very centre of that planet, we left Bal- 
timore by another railway at half past eight 
in the morning, and reached the town of 
York, some sixty miles off, by the early 
dinner-time of the hotel which was the 
starting - place of the four-horse coach 
wherein we were to proceed to Harris- 
burg. 

This conveyance, the box of which I was 
fortunate enough to secure, had come down 
to meet us at the railroad station, and was 
as muddy and cumbersome as usual. As 
more passengers were waiting for us at the 
inn door, the coachman observed under his 
breath, in the usual self-communicative 
voice, looking the while at his mouldy har- 
ness as if it were to that he was addressing 
himself, — 

" I expect we shall want the big coach." 
I could not help wondering within my- 
self what the size of this big coach might 
be, and how many persons it might be de- 
signed to hold ; for the vehicle which was 
too small for our purpose was something 
larger than two English heavy night coach- 
es, and might have been the twin brother 
of a French Diligence. My speculations 
were speedily set at rest, however ; for as 
soon as we had dined, there came rumbling 
up the street, shaking its sides like a cor- 
pulent giant, a kind of barge on wheels. 
After much blundering and backing, it 
stopped at the door, rolling heavily from 
side to side when its other motion had 
ceased, as if it had taken cold in its damp 
stable, and, between that and the having 
been required in its dropsical old age to 
move at any faster pace than a walk, were 
distressed by shortness of wind. 

" If here ain't the Harrisburg mail at last, 
and dreadful bright and smart to look at 
too," cried an elderly gentleman, in some 
excitement, " darn my mother ! " 

I don't know what the sensation of being 
darned may be, or whether a man's mother 
has a keener relish or disrelish of the pro- 
cess than anybody else ; but if the endur- 
ance of this mysterious ceremony by the old 
lady in question had depended on the accu- 
racy of her son's vision in respect to the ab- 
stract brightness and smartness of the Har- 
risburg mail, she would cei'tainly have 
undergone its infliction. However, they 
booked twelve people inside ; and the lug- 
gage (including such trifles as a large rock- 



AMEBIC AN^ NOTES 



Ing-cliaii" and a good-sized dining-tablc) 
being at length made fast upon the roof, 
Ave started ofi' in great state. 

At tlie door of another hotel there was 
another passenger to be taken up. 

" Any room, sir ? " cries the new passen- 
ger to the coachman. 

" Well, there 's room enough," replies the 
coachman, without getting down, or even 
looking at him. 

" There ain't no room at all, sir," bawls a 
gentleman inside. Which another gentle- 
man (also inside,) confirms by predicting 
that the attempt to introduce any more 
passengers " won't fit nohow." 

The new passenger, without any expres- 
sion of anxiety, looks into the coach, and 
then looks up at the coachman. " Now, how 
do you mean to fix it ? " says he, after a 
pause ; " for I must go." 

The coachman employs himself in twist- 
ing the lash of his whip into a knot, and 
takes no more notice of the question ; clear- 
ly signifying that it is anybody's business 
but iiis, and that the passengers would do 
well to fix it among themselves. In this 
state of things matters seem to be approxi- 
mating to a fix of another kind, when an- 
other inside passenger in a corner, who is 
nearly suffocated, cries faintly, — 

'• I '11 get out." 

Tiiis is no matter of relief or self-congrat- 
ulation to the driver, for his immovable phi- 
losophy is perfectly undisturbed by any- 
thing that happens in the coach. Of all 
things in the world, the coach would seem 
to be the very last upon his mind. The 
exchange is made, however ; and then the 
passenger who has given up his seat makes 
a third upon the box, seating himself in 
what he calls the middle, that is, with half 
his person on my legs, and the other half on 
the driver's. 

" Go ahead, cap'en," cries the colonel, 
who directs. 

" Go-lang ! " cries the cap'en to his com- 
pany, the horses, and away we go. 

We took up at a rural bar-room, after we 
had gone a tew miles, an intoxicated gen- 
tleman, who climbed upon the roof among 
the luggage, and, subsequently slipping off, 
without hurting himself, was seen in the 
distant perspective reeling back to the grog- 
shop where we had found him. We also 
jxirted with more of our freight at different 
times, so that, when we came to change 
horses, I was again alone outside. 

The coachmen always change with the 
horses, and are usually as dirty as the 
coach. The first was dressed like a very 



shabby English baker ; the second, like a 
Russian peasant ; for he wore a loose pur- 
ple camlet robe with a fur collar, tied round 
his waist with a party-colored worsted sash, 
gray trousers, light-blue gloves, and a cap 
of beai'-skin. It had by this time come on 
to rain very heavily, and there was a cold 
damp mist, besides, which penetrated to the 
skin. I was very glad to take advantage 
of a stoppage and get down to stretch my 
legs, shake the water off my great-coat, and 
swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe 
for keeping out the cold. 

When I mounted to my scat again, I 
observed a new parcel lying on the coach 
roof, which I took to be a rather large 
fiildle in a brown bag. In the course of a 
few miles, however, I discovered that it had 
a glazed cap at one end and a pair of mud- 
dy shoes at the other ; and further obser- 
vation demonstrated it to be a small boy in 
a snuff-colored coat, with his arms quite 
pinioned to his sides, by deep forcing into 
his pockets. lie was, I presume, a relative 
or friend of the coachman's, as he lay atop 
of the luggage with his face towards the 
rain ; and, except when a change of position 
brought his shoes in contact with my hat, 
he appeared to be asleep. At last, on some 
occasion of our stopping, this thing slowly 
upreared itself to the height of three feet 
six, and, fixing its eyes on me, observed in 
piping accents, with a comj^laisant yawn, 
lialf quenched in an obliging air of friendly 
patronage, " Well now, stranger, I guess 
)ou find this a'most like an English arter- 
noon, hey ?" 

The scenery, which had been tame enough 
at first, was, for the last ten or twelve miles, 
beautiful. Our road wound through the 
pleasant valley of the Susquehanna ; the 
river, dotted with innumerable green is- 
lands, lay upon our right ; and on the left, > 
a steep ascent, craggy with broken rock, 
and dark with pine-trees. The mist, wreath- 
ing itself into a hundred fantastic shapes, 
moved solemnly upon the water ; and 
the gloom of evening gave to all an air 
of mystery and silence which greatly en- 
hanced its" natural interest. 

We crossed this ri^'cr l)y a wooden bridge, 
roofed and covered in on all sides, and 
nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly 
dark, perplexed with great beams crossing 
and recrossing it at every possible angle ; 
and through the broad chinks and crevices 
in the floor, the rapid river gleamed, far 
down below, like a legion of eyes. We had 
no lamps ; and as the horses stumbled and 
floundered through this place, tOAvards the 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION, 



distant speck of d}-ing light, it seemed in- 
terminable. I really could not at first per- 
suade myself, as we rumbled heavily on, 
filling the bridge with hollow noises, and I 
held down my head to save it from the raft- 
ers above, but that I was in a painful dream ; 
for I have often dreamed of toiling through 
such places, and as often argued, even at 
the time, " This cannot be reality." 

At length, however, we emerged upon 
the streets of Ilarrisburg, whose feeble 
lights, reflected dismnlly fi-om the wet 
ground, did not shine out upon a very 
cheerful city. We were soon established in 
a snug hotel, which, though smaller and far 
less splendid than many we put up at, is 
raised above them all, in my remembrance, 
by having for its landlord the most obliging, 
considerate, and gentlemanly person I ever 
had to deal with. 

As we were not to proceed upon our 
journey until the afternoon, I walked out, 
after breakfast the next morning, to look 
about me ; and was duly shown a model 
prison on the solitary system, just erected, 
and as yet without an inmate ; the trunk of 
an old tree to which Harris, the first settler 
here (afterwards buried under it), was tied 
by hostile Indians, with his funeral pile about 
him, when he was saved by the timely ap- 
pearance of a friendly party on the opposite 
shore of the river ; the local legislature (for 
there was another of those bodies here, 
again, in full debate) ; and the other curi- 
osities of the town. 

I ^vas very much interested in looking over 
a number of treaties made fi-om time to time 
vrith the poor Indians, signed by the differ- 
ent chiefs at the periol of their ratification, 
and pi-eserved in the office of the Secretary 
to the Commonwealth. These signatures, 
traced of course by their own hands, are 
rough drawings of the creatures or weapons 
they were called after. Thus, the Great 
Turtle makes a crooked pen-and-ink out- 
line of a great turtle ; the Buffalo sketches 
a buffalo ; the War Hatchet sets a rough 
image of that weapon for his mark. So 
with the Arrow, the Fish, the Scalp, the 
Big Canoe, and all of them. 

I could not but think — as I looked at 
these feeble and tremulous productions of 
hands which could draw the longest arrow 
to the head in a stout elk-horn bow, or split 
a bead or feather with a rifle-ball — of 
Crabbe's musings over the Parish Register, 
and the iiTCgular scratches made with a 
pen by men who would plough a lengthy 
furrow straight from end to end. Nor 
could I help bestowing many sorrowful 



thoughts upon the simple warriors whose 
hands and hearts were set there, in all 
truth and honesty ; and who only learned in 
course of time from white men how to 
break their faith, and quibble out of forms 
and bonds. I wondered, too, how many 
times the credulous Big Turtle, or trusting 
Little Hatchet, had put his mark to treaties 
which were falsely read to him, and had 
signed awaj-, he knew not what, until it 
went and cast him loose upon the new pos- 
sessors of the land, a savage indeed. 

Our host announced before our early 
dinner that some members of the legislative 
body proposed to do us the honor of calling. 
He had kindly yielded up to us his wife's own 
little parlor ; and when I begged that he 
would show them in, I saw him look with 
painfid apprehension at its pretty carpet ; 
thougli, being otherwise occupied at the 
time, the cause of his uneasiness did not 
occur to me. 

It certainly would have been more pleas- 
ant to all parties concerned, and would not, 
I think, have compromised their independ- 
ence in any material degree, if some of 
these gentlemen had not only pelded to 
the prejudice in favor of spittoons, but had 
abandoned themselves, for the moment, 
even to the conventional absurdity of pock- 
et-handkerchiefs. 

It still continued to rain heavily, and 
when we went down to the Canal-Boat (for 
that was the mode of conveyance by which 
we were to proceed) after dinner, the 
weather was as unpromising and obstinate- 
ly wet as one would desire to see. Nor was 
the sight of this canal-boat, in which we 
were to spend three or four days, by any 
means a cheerful one ; as it involved some 
uneasy speculations concerning the disposal 
of the passengers at night, and opened a 
wide field of inquiry touching the other do- 
mestic arrangements of the estabhshment, 
which was sufficiently disconcerting. 

However, there it was, — a barge with a 
little house in it, viewed from the outside ; 
and a caravan at a fair, viewed from -n-ith- 
in ; the gentlemen being accommodated, as 
the spectators usually are, in one of those 
locomotive museums of penny wonders.; 
and the ladies being partitioned off by a 
red curtain, after the manner of the dwarfs 
and giants in the same establishments, whose 
private lives are passed in rather close ex- 
clusiveness. 

We sat here, looking silently at the row 
of little tables, which extended down both 
sides of the cabin, and listening to the rain 
as it dripped and pattered on the boat, and 



AMERICAN NOTES 



jjlaslied with a dismal merriment in the 
•water, until the arrival of the railway train, 
for whose final contribution to our stock of 
passengers our departure was alone de- 
ferred. It brought a great many boxes, 
which were bumped and tossed upon the 
roof, almost as painfully as if they had been 
deposited on one's own head, without the 
intervention of a porter's knot ; and several 
damp gentlemen, whose clothes, on their 
drawing round the stove, began to steam 
again. No doubt it would have been a 
thought more comfortable if the driving 
rain, which now poured down more soak- 
ingly than ever, had admitted of a window 
bemg opened, or if our number had been 
something less than thirty ; but there was 
scarcely time to think as much, when a 
train of three horses was attached to the 
tow-rope, the boy upon the leader smacked 
his whip, the rudder creaked and groaned 
comjilainingly, and we had begun our jour- 
ney. 



CHAPTER X. 

SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CA- 
NAL-BOAT, ITS DOMESTIC ECONOMY, 
AND ITS PASSENGERS. JOURNEY TO 
i PITTSBURG ACROSS THE ALLEGHANY 
: MOUNTAINS. PITTSBURG. 

As it continued to rain most persever- 
ingly, we all remained below ; the damp 
gentlemen round the stove gradually be- 
coming mildewed by the action of the fire ; 
and the dry gentlemen lying at full length 
upon the seats, or slumbering uneasily with 
their faces on the tables, or walking up and 
down the cabin, which it was barely pos- 
sible for a man of the middle height to do, 
without making bald i^laces on his head by 
scraping it against the root". At about six 
o'clock all the small tables were put togeth- 
er to form one long table, and everybody 
sat down to tea, coffee, bread, butter, sal- 
mon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, 
ham, chops, black puddings, and sausages. 

" Will you try," said my opposite neigh- 
bor, handing me a dish of potatoes, broken 
up in milk and butter, — " will you try some 
of these fixings ? " 

There are few words which perform such 
various duties as this word " fix." It is the 
Caleb Quotem of the American vocabulary. 
You call upon a gentleman in a country 
town, and his help informs you that he is 
" fixing himself " just now, but will be down 
directly ; by which you are to understand 



that he is dressing. You inquire, on board 
a steamboat, of a fellow-passenger, whether 
breakfast will be ready soon, and he tells 
you he should think so, for when he was last 
below they were " fixing the tables," in oth- 
er words, laying the cloth. You beg a por- 
ter to collect your luggage, and he entreats 
you not to be uneasy, for he '11 " fix it pres- 
ently " ; and if you complain of indisposi- 
tion, you are advised to have recourse to 
Doctor so-and-so, who will " fix you " in no 
time. 

One night I ordered a bottle of mulled 
wine at an hotel where I was staying, and 
waited a long time for it ; at length it was 
put upon the table with an apology from the 
landlord that he feared it was n't " fixed 
properly." And I recollect once, at a stage- 
coach dinner, overhearing a very stern gen- 
tleman demand of a waiter who presented 
him with a plate of underdone roast beef 
" whether he called that fixing God 
A'mighty's vittles." 

There is no doubt that the n.eal, at 
which the invitation was tendered to me 
which has occasioned this digression, was 
disposed of somewhat ravenously ; and that 
the gentlemen thrust the broad-bladed 
knives and the two-pronged forks fiirther 
down their throats than I ever saw the same 
weapons go before, except in the liands of 
a skilful juggler ; but no man sat down un- 
til the ladies were seated, or omitted any 
little act of politeness which could contrib- 
ute to their comfort. Nor did I ever once, 
on any occasion, anywhere, during my ram- 
bles in America, see a woman exposed to 
the slightest act of rudeness, inciviUty, or 
even inattention. 

By the time the meal was over, the rain, 
which seemed to have worn itself out by 
coming down so fast, was nearly over too, 
and it became feasible to go on deck ; which 
was a great relief, notwithstanding its being 
a very small deck, and being rendered still 
smaller by the luggage, which was heaped 
together in the miildle under a tarpaulin 
covering ; leaving on either side a i)ath so 
narrow that it became a science to walk to 
and fro without tumbling overboard into 
the canal. It was somewhat embarrassing 
at first, too, to have to duck nimbly every 
five minutes, whenever the man at the helm 
cried, " Bridge I " and sometimes, when the 
cry was, " Low Bridge," to he down nearly 
tlat. But custom familiarizes one to any- 
thing, and there were so many bridges that 
it took a very short time to get used to this. 
As night came on, and we drew in sight 
of the first range of hills, which are the ] 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



outposts of the Alleghany Mountains, the 
scenery, which had been uninteresting hith- 
erto, became more bold and striking. The 
wet ground reeked and smoked, after the 
heavj- fall of rain ; and the croaking of the 
frogs (whose noise in these parts is almost 
incredible) sounded as though a million of 
fliiry teams with bells were travelling 
through the air, and keeping pace with us. 
The night was cloudy yet, but moonlight 
too ; and when we crossed the Susquehan- 
na River, — over which there is an extraor- 
dinary wooden bridge with two galleries, 
one above the other, so that, even there, 
two boat-teams meeting may pass without 
confusion, — it was wild and grand. 

I have mentioned my having been in some 
uncertainty and doubt, at first, relative to 
the sleeping-arrangements on board this 
boat. I remained in the same vague state 
of mind imtil ten o'clock or thereabouts, 
when, going below, I found, suspended on 
either side of the cabin, three long tiers of 
hanging book-shelves, designed apparently 
for volumes of the small octavo size. Look- 
ing with greater attention at these contrivan- 
ces (wondering to find such literary prepa- 
rations in such a place), I descried on each 
shelf a sort of microscopic sheet and blank- 
et ; then 1 began dimly to comprehend that 
the passengers were the library, and that 
they were to be arranged, edgewise, on 
these shelves till morning. 

I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing 
some of them gathered round the master of 
the boat, at one of the tables, drawing lots 
Avith all the anxieties and passions of game- 
sters depicted in their countenances ; while 
others, with small pieces of card-board in 
their hands, were groping among the shelves 
in search of numbers corresponding with 
those they had drawn. As soon as any gen- 
tleman found his number, he took posses- 
sion of it by immediately undressing himself 
and crawling into bed. The rapidity with 
which an agitated gambler subsided into a 
snoring slumberer was one of the most sin- 
gular effects I have ever witnessed. As to 
the ladies, they were ab-eady abed, behind 
the red curtain which was carefully drawn 
and pinned up the centre ; though, as ev- 
ery cough, or sneeze, or whisper behind 
this curtain was perfectly audible before it, 
we had still a lively consciousness of their 
society. 

The politeness of the person in authority 
had secured to me a shelf in a nook near 
this red curtain, in some degree removed 
from the great body of sleepers, — to which 
place I retired, with many acknowledg- 



ments to him for his attention. I found it, 
on after-measurement, just the width of an 
ordinary sheet of Bath post letter-paper ; 
and I was at first in some uncertainty as to 
the best means of getting into it. But, the 
shelf being a bottom one, I finally deter- 
mined on lying upon the floor, rolling gen- 
tly in, stopping immediately I touched the 
mattress, and remaining for the night with 
that side uppermost, whatever it might be. 
Luckily, I came upon my back at exactly 
the right moment. I was much alarmed, 
on looking upward, to see, by the shape of 
his half-yard of sacking (which his weight 
had bent into an exceedingly tight bag), 
that there was a very heavy gentleman 
above me, whom the slender cords seemed 
quite incapable of holding; and I could not 
help reflecting upon the grief of my wife 
and family In the event of his coming down 
in the night. But as I could not have got 
up again without a severe bodily struggle, 
which might have alarmed the ladles, and 
as I had nowhere to go to, even if I had, 
I shut my eyes upon the danger, and re- 
mained there. 

One of two remarkable circumstances Is 
indisputably a fact, with reference to that 
class of society who travel in these boats. 
Either they carry their restlessness to such 
a pitch that they never sleep at all, or they 
expectorate in dreams, which would be a 
remarkable mingling of the real and ideal. 
All night long, and every night, on this ca- 
nal, there was a perfect storm and tempest 
of spitting ; and once, my coat being in the 
very centre of a hurricane sustained by five 
gentlemen (which moved vertically, strictly 
carrying out Reld's Theory of the Law of 
Storms), I was fein the next morning to 
lay it on the deck, and rub it down with 
fair water before it was in a condition to be 
worn again. 

Between five and six o'clock in the morn- 
ing we got up, and some of us went on 
deck to give them an opportunity of taking 
the shelves down ; while othei-s, the morn- 
ing being very cold, crowded round the 
rusty stove, cherishing the newly kindled 
fire, and filling the grate with those volun- 
tary contributions of which they had been 
so liberal all night. The washing-accom- 
modations were primitive. There was a 
tin ladle chained to the deck, with which 
every gentleman who thought it necessary 
to cleanse himself (many were superior to 
this weakness) fished the dirty water out 
of the canal, and poured It into a tin basin, 
secured In like manner. There was also a 
jack-towel. And hanging up before a lit- 



AMERICAN NOTES 



tie looking-glass in the bar, in the immedi- 
ate vicinity of the bread and cheese and 
biscuits, were a public comb and hair- 
brush. 

At eight o'clock, the shelves being taken 
down and put away, and the tables joined 
together, everybody sat down to the tea, 
coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, 
steak, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops, black 
puddings, and sausages, all over again. 
Some were fond of compounding this va- 
riety, and having it all on their plates at 
once. As each gentleman got through his 
own personal amount of tea, coffee, bread, 
butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, 
pickles, ham, chops, black pudding-!, ami 
sausages, he rose up and walked oif. Wlien 
everybody had done with everything, the 
fragments were cleared away, and one of 
the waiters, appearing anew in the charac- 
ter of a barber, shaved such of the com- 
pany as desired to be shaved, while the re- 
mainder looked on, or yawned over their 
newspapers. Diuuer was breakfast again, 
without the tea aad coffee ; and supper and 
breakfast were identical. 

There was a man on board this boat, 
with a light, fresh-colored face, and a pep- 
per-and-salt suit of clothes, who was the 
most inquisitive fellow that can possibly be 
imagined. He never spoke otherwise than 
interrogatively. He was an embodied in- 
quiry. Sitting down or standing up, still 
or moving, walking the deck or taking his 
meals, there he was, with a great note of 
interrogation in each eye, two in his cocked 
ears, two more in his turned-up nose and 
chin, at least half a dozen more about tlie 
corners of his moutli, and the largest one 
of all in his hair, which was brushed pert- 
ly off his forehead in a flaxen clump. 
Every button in his clothes said, "Eh? 
What's that ? Did you speak ? Say that 
again, will you ? " He was always wide 
awake, like the enchanted bride who drove 
her husband frantic ; always restless, al- 
ways thirsting for answers, perpetually 
seeking and never finding. There never 
was such a curious man. 

I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and 
before we were well clear of the wharf, he 
(juestioned me concerning it, and its price, 
and where I bought it, and when, and what 
fur it was, and what it weighed, and what 
it cost. Then he took notice of in}^ watch, 
and asked what tlial cost, and whether it 
was a French watch, and where I got it, 
and how I got it, and whether I bought it 
or had it given me, and how it went, and 
w'lere the keyhole was, and when I wound 



it, every night or every morning, and 
whether I ever forgot to wind it at all, and 
if I did, what then ? Where had I been 
to last, and where was I going next, and 
where was I going after that, and had I 
seen the President, and what did he say, 
and what did I say, and what did he say 
when I had said that ? Eh ? Lor now ! 
do tell ! 

Finding that nothing would satisfy him, 
I evaded his questions after the first score 
or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance 
respecting the name of the fur whereof the 
coat was made. I am unable to say wheth- 
er this was the reason, but that coat fasci- 
nated him ever afterwards ; he usually kept' 
close behind me as I walked, and moved as 
I moved, that he might look at it the bet> 
ter; and he frequently dived into narrow 
places after me at the risk of his life, that 
he might have the satisfaction of passing 
his hand iq) the back, and rubbing it the 
wrong way. 

We had another odd specimen on board 
of a different kind. This was a thin-faced, 
spare-figured man of middle age and stat- 
ure, dressed in a dusty drabbish-colored 
suit, such as I never saw before. He was 
perfectly quiet during the first part of the 
journey, — indeed I don't remember hav- 
ing so much as seen him until he was 
brought out by circumstances, as great men 
often are. The conjunction of events 
which made him famous happened, briefly, 
thus. 

The canal extends to the foot of the 
mountain, and there, of course, it stops, 
the passengers being conveyed across it by 
land-carriage, and taken on afterwards by 
another canal-boat, the counterpart of the 
first, which awaits them on the other side. 
There are two canal lines of passage-boats ; 
one is called The Express, and one (a 
cheaper one) The Pioneer. The Pioneer 
gets first to the mountain, and waits for 
the Express people to come up ; both sets 
of i:»assengers being conveyed across it at 
the same time. We were the Express com- 
pany ; but when we had crossed the moun- 
tain, and had come to the second boat, the 
proprietors took it into their heads to draft 
all the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we 
were five-and-lbrty at least, and the acces- 
sion of passengers was not at all of that 
kind which inq>roved the prospect of sleep- 
ing at night. Our people grumbled at this, 
as people do in such cases, but suffered the 
boat to be towed off with the whole freight 
aboard nevertlieless ; and away we went 
down the canal. At home, I should have 




THE BROWN FORESTER, 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



79 



protested lustily, but being a foreigner here 
I held my peace. Not so this passenger. 
He cleft a path among the people on deck 
(we were nearly all on deck), and, without 
addressing anybody whomsoever, solilo- 
quized as follows ; — 

" This may suit you, this may, but it don't 
suit me. This may be all very well with 
Down-Easters, and men of Boston raising, 
but it won't suit my figure nohow ; and no two 
ways about tlmt ; and so I tell you. Now ! 
I 'm from the brown forests of the Mississip- 
pi, / am, and when the sun shines on me, it 
does shine — a little. It don't glimmer 
where / live, the sun don't. No. I 'm a 
brown forester, I am. I ain't a Johnny 
Cake. There are no smooth skins where I 
live. We 're rough men there. Rather. If 
Down-Easters, and men of Boston raising 
like this, I 'm glad of it, but I 'm none of that 
raising nor of that breed. No. This com- 
pany wants a little fixing, it does. I 'm the 
wrong sort of man for 'em, / am. They 
won't like me, theu won't. This is piling of 
it up a little too mountainous, this is." At 
the end of every one of these short senten- 
ces he turned upon his heel, and walked the 
other way ; checking himself abruptly when 
he had finished another short sentence, and 
turning back again. 

It is impossible for me to say what ter- 
rific meaning was hidden in the words of this 
brown forester, but I know that the other 
passengers looked on in a sort of admiring 
horror, and that presently the boat was put 
back to the wharf, and as many of the Pio- 
neers as could be coaxed or bullied into 
going away were got rid of 

"When we started again, some of the bold- 
est spirits on board made bold to say to the 
obvious occasion of this improvement in our 
prospects, " Much obliged to you, sir " ; 
whereunto the brown forester (waving his 
hand, and still walking up and down as be- 
fore) replied, " No, you ain't. You 're none 
o' my raising. You may act for yourselves, 
you may. I have pinted out the way. 
Down-Easters and Johnny Cakes can follow 
if they please. I ain't a Johnny Cake, / 
ain't. I am from the brown ibrests of the 
Mississippi, I am," — and so on, as before. 
He was unanimously voted one of the ta- 
bles for his bed at night, — there is a great 
contest for the tables, — in consideration of 
his public services ; and he had the warmest 
corner by the stove throughout the rest of 
the journey. But I never could find out 
that he did anything except sit there ; nor 
did I hear him speak again, until, in the 
midst of the bustle and tui-moil of cetting 



the luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, 
I stumbled over him as he sat smoking a ci- 
gar on the cabin steps, and heard him mut- 
tering to himself, with a short laugh of de- 
fiance, "I ain't a Johnny Cake, / ain't. 
I 'm from the brown forests of the Mississip- 
pi, / am, damme ! " I am inclined to argue, 
from this, that he had never left oif saying 
so ; but I could not make affidavit of that 
part of the story, if required to do so by my 
Queen and Country. 

As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, 
however, in the order of our narrative, I 
may go on to remark that breakfast was 
perhaps the least desirable meal of the day, 
as, in addition to the many savory odors 
arising from the eatables already mentioned, 
there were whiffs of gin, whiskey, brandy, 
and rum, from the little bar hard by, and a 
decided seasoning of stale tobacco. Many 
of the gentlemen passengers were far from 
particular in respect of their linen, wliich 
was in some cases as yellow as the little 
rivulets that had trickled from the corners 
of their mouths in chewing, and dried 
there. Nor was the atmosphere quite free 
fiom zephyr whisperings of the thirty beds 
which had just been cleared away, and of 
which we were further and more pressingly 
reminded by the occasional appearance on 
the table-cloth of a kind of Game not men- 
tioned in the Bill of Fare. 

And yet, despite these oddities, — and 
even they had, for me at least, a humor of 
tlieir own, — there was much in this mode 
of travelling which I heartily enjoyed at 
the time, and look back upon with great 
pleasure. Even the running up, bare- 
necked, at five o'clock in the morning, from 
the tainted cabin to the dirty deck, scoop- 
ing up the icy water, plunging one 's head 
into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and 
glowing with the cold, was a good thing. 
The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, 
between that time and breakfast, when 
every vein and artery seemed to tingle with 
health ; the exquisite beauty of the opening 
day, when light came gleaming off from 
everything; the lazy motion of the boat, 
when one lay idly on the deck, looking 
through, rather than at, the deep blue sky ; 
the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past 
frowning hills, sullen with dark trees, and 
sometimes angry in one red, burning spot 
high up, where unseen men lay crouching 
round a fire ; the shining out of the briglit 
stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or 
steam, or any other sound than the liquid 
rippling of the water as the boat went on, — 
all these were pure delights. 



80 



AMERICAN NOTES 



Then there were new settlements and de- 
tached log-cabins and frame-houses, full of 
interest for strangers from an old country ; 
cabins with simple ovens, outside, made 
of clay ; and lodgings for the pigs nearly 
as good as many of the human quarters ; 
broken Avindows, patched with worn-out 
hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of 
blankets and paper ; and home-made dress- 
ers standing in the open air without the 
door, whereon was ranged the household 
store, not hard to count, of earthen jars and 
pots. The eye was pained to see the stumps 
of great trees thickly strewn in every field 
of Avheat, and seldom to lose the eternal 
swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of 
rotten trunks and twisted branches steeped 
in its unwholesome water. It was quite 
sad and oppressive to come upon great 
tracts where settlers had been burning down 
the trees, and wliere their wounded bodies 
lay about, like those of murdered creatures, 
while here and there some charred and 
blackened giant reared aloft two withered 
arms, and seemed to call down curses on 
his foes. Sometimes, at night, the way 
wound through some lonely gorge, like a 
mountain pass in Scotland, shining and 
coldly glittering in the light of the moon, 
and so closed in by high, steep hills all 
round, that there seemed to be no egress 
save through the narrower path by which 
we had come, until one rugged hillside 
seemed to open, and, shutting out the moon- 
light as we passed into its gloomy throat, 
wrapped our new course in shade and dark- 
ness. 

We had left Harrisburg on Friday. On 
Sunday morning we arrived at the foot of 
the mountain, which is ci'ossed by railroad. 
There are ten inclined planes ; five ascend- 
ing, and five f/escending. The carriages 
are dragged up the former, and let slowly 
down the latter, by means of stationary en- 
gines ; the comparatively level spaces be- 
tween being traversed sometimes by horse, 
and sometimes by engine power, as the case 
demands. Occasionally the rails are laid 
upon the extreme verge of a giddy preci- 
pice ; and, looking from the carriage win- 
dow, the traveller gazes sheer down, without 
a stone or scrap of fence between, into the 
mountain depths below. The journey is 
very carefully made, however, — only two 
carriages travelling together, — and, while 
proper precautions are taken, is not to be 
dreaded for its dangers. 

It was very pretty, travelling thus at a 
rapid pace along the heights of the moun- 
tain in a keen wind, to look down into a 



valley full of light and softness ; catching 
glimpses, through the tree-tops, of scattered 
cabins ; children running to the doors ; 
dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could 
see without hearing ; terrified ])igs scamper- 
ing homewards ; families sitting out in their 
rude gardens ; cows gazing upward with a 
stupid indifference ; men in their shirt- 
sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, 
planning out to-morrow's work ; and we 
riding onward, high above them, like a 
whirlwind. It was amusing, too, when we 
had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, 
having no other moving power than the 
weight of the carriages themselves, to sec the 
engine, released long after us, come buzzing 
down alone, like a great insect, its back of 
green and gold so shining in the sun that, 
if it had spread a pair of wings and soared 
away, no one would have had occasion, as I 
fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped 
short of us in a very business-like manner 
when we reached the canal ; and, before we 
left the wharf, went panting up this hill 
again, with the passengers who had waited 
our arrival for the means of traversing the 
road by which we had come. 

On the Monday evening furnace-fires 
and clanking hammers on the banks of the 
canal warned us that we approached the 
termination of this part of our journey. 
After going through another dreamy place, 
— a long aqueduct across the Alleghany 
River, which was stranger than the bridge 
at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden 
chamber full of water, — we emerged upon 
that ugly confusion of backs of buildings and 
crazy galleries and stairs which always 
abuts on water, whether it be river, sea, 
cajuil, or ditch, and were at Pittsburg. 
/Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England ; 
Cat least, its townspeople say so. Setting 
aside the streets, the shops, the houses, 
wagons, factories, public buildings, and 
population, perhaps it may be. It certain- 
ly has a great quantity of smoke hanging 
about it, and is famous for its iron-works. 
Besides the prison to which I have already 
referred, this town contains a pretty arsenal 
and other institutions. It is very beauti- 
fully situated on the Alleghany River, over 
which there are two bridges ; and the villas 
of the wealthier citizens, sprinkled about 
the high grounds in the neighborhood, are 
pretty enough. AA^e lodged at a most ex- 
cellent hotel, and were admirably served. 
As usual, it was full of boarders, was very- 
large, and had a t«;Qad colonnade to every 
story of the house, j 

We tarried hercrthree davs. Our next 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



point was Cincinnati ; and as this was a 
steamboat journey, and Western steam- 
boats usually blow up one or two a week 
in the season, it was advisable to collect 
opinions in reference to the comparative 
safety of the vessels, bound that way, then 
lying in the river. One called The Mes- 
senger was the best recommended. She 
had been advertised to start positively, 
every day for a fortnight or so, and had 
not gone yet, nor did her captain seem to 
have any very fixed intention on the sub- 
ject. But this is the custom ; for if the law 
were to bind down a free and independent 
citizen to keep his word with the public, 
what would become of the liberty of the 
subject ? Besides, it is in the way of trade. 
And if passengei-s be decoyed in the way 
of trade, and people be inconvenienced In 
the way of trade, what man, who is a sharp 
tradesman himself, shall say, " We must 
put a stop to this " ? 

Impressed by the deep solemnity of the 
public announcement, I (being then igno- 
rant of these usages) was for hurrying on 
board in a breathless state immediately ; 
but receiving private and confidential in- 
formation that the boat would certainly not 
start until Friday, April the First, we made 
ourselves very comfortable in the mean 
while, and went on board at noon that day. 



CHAPTER XI. 

FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCIXNATI IN A 
WESTERN STEAMBOAT. CINCINNATI. 

The Messenger was one among a crowd 
of high-pressure steamboats, clustered to- 
gether by the wharf-side, which, looked 
down upon from the rising ground that 
forms the landing-place, and backed by the 
lofty bank on the opposite side of the i-iver, 
appeared no larger than so many floating 
models. She had some forty passengers on 
board, exclusive of the poorer persons on 
the lower deck ; and. In half an hour or less, 
proceeded on her way. 

We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room, 
with two berths in It, opening out of the 
ladies' cabin. There was, undoubted!)-, 
something satisfactory in this " location," 
inasmuch as it was in the stern, and we had 
been a great many times very gravely rec- 
ommended to keep as far aft as possible, 
" because the steamboats generally blew 
up forward." Nor was this an unnecessary 
caution, as the occurrence and circumstances 
6 



of more than one such fatality during our 
stay sufficiently testified. Apart from this 
source of self-congratulation, it was an un- 
speakable relief to have any place, no mat- 
ter how confined, where one could be alone ; 
and as the row of little chambers of which 
this was one had each a second glass door 
besides that in the ladies' cabin, which 
opened on a narrow gallery outside the 
vessel, where the other passengers seldom 
came, and where one could sit in peace and 
gaze upon the shifting prospect, we took 
possession of our new quarters with much 
pleasure. 

If the native packets I have already de- 
scribed be unlike anything we are in the 
habit of seeing on water, these Western 
vessels are still more foreign to all the ideas 
we are accustomed to entertain of boats. I 
hardly know what to liken them to, or how 
to describe them. 

In the first place, they have no mast, 
cordage, tackle, rigging, or other such boat- 
like gear : nor have they anything in their 
shape at all calculated to remind one of a 
boat's head, stern, sides, or keel. Except 
that they are in the water, and display a 
couj^le of paddle-boxes, they might be in- 
tended, for anything that appears to the 
contraiy, to perform some unknown service, 
high and dry, upon a mountain-top. There 
is no visible deck even, — nothing but a 
long, black, ugly roof, covered with burnt- 
out feathery sparks ; above which tower 
two iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape- 
valve, and a glass steerage-house. Then, 
In order as the eye descends towards the 
water, are the sides and doors and win- 
dows of the state-rooms, jumbled as oddly 
together as though they formed a small 
street, built by the varying tastes of a doz- 
en men ; the whole is supported on beams 
and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a 
few inches above the water's edge ; and in 
the narrow space between this upper struct- 
ure and this barge's deck are the furnace- 
fires and machinery, open at the sides to 
every wind that blows, and every storm of 
rain it drives along its path. 

Passing one of these boats at night, and 
seeing the great body of fii'C, exposed as I 
have just described, that rages and roars 
beneath the frail pile of painted wood, — 
the machinery, not warded off or guarded 
in any way, but doing its work in the midst 
of the crowd of idlers and emigrants and 
children, who throng the lower deck, under 
the management, too, of reckless men whose 
acquaintance with its mysteries may have 
been of six months' standing, — one feels 



82 



AMERICAN NOTES 



directly (hat the wonrler is, not that there 
should be so many fatal accidents, but that 
any journey should be safely made. 

"Within, there is one long, narrow cabin, 
the whole length of the boat, from which 
the state-rooms open, on both sides. A 
small portion of it at the stern is partitioned 
off for the ladies ; and the bar is at the op- 
posite extreme. There is a long table down 
the centre, and at either end a stove. The 
washing-apparatus is forward, on the deck. 
It is a httle better than on board the canal- 
boat, but not much. In uU modes of trav- 
elling, the American customs with refer- 
ence to the means of personal cleanliness 
and wholesome ablution are extremely 
negligent and filthy ; and I strongly incline 
to the belief that a considerable amount of 
illness is referable to this cause. 

"We are to be on board The jVIessenger 
three days; arriving at Cincinnati (barring 
accidents) on ^londay morning. There 
are three meals a day. Breakfast at seven, 
dinner at half past twelve, supper about 
six. At each there are a great many small 
dishes and plates upon the table, with very 
little in them ; so that, although there is 
every appearance of a mighty " spread," 
there is seldom really more than a joint ; 
except for those who fancy slices of beet- 
root, shreds of dried beef, complicated en- 
tanglements of yellow pickle, maize, Indian 
corn, apple-sauce, and pumpkin. 

Some people fancy all these little dainties 
together (and sweet preserves beside), by 
way of relish to their roast pig. They are 
generally those dyspeptic ladies and gen- 
tlemen who eat unheard-of quantities of 
hot corn-bread (almost as good for the di- 
gestion as a kneaded pin-cushion) for break- 
fast and for supper. Those who do not ob- 
serve this custom, and who help themselves 
several times instead, usually suck their 
knives and forks meditatively, until they 
have decided what to take next ; then pull 
them out of their mouths, put them in the 
dish, help themselves, and flxU to work 
again. At dinner there is nothing to drink 
upon the table, but great jugs full of cold 
water. Nobody says anything at any meal 
to anybody. AH the passengers are very 
dismal, and seem to have tremendous se- 
crets weighing on their minds. There is 
no conversation, no laughter, no cheerful- 
ness, no sociality, except in spitting ; and 
that is done in silent fellowship round the 
stove when the meal is over. Every man 
sits down, dull and languid, swallows his 
fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and suppers 
were necessities of nature never to be cou- 



pled with recreation or enjoyment ; and, 
liaving bolted his food in a gloomy silence, 
bolts himself in the same state. But for 
these animal observances, you might sup- 
pose the whole male portion of the company 
to be the melancholy ghosts of departed 
book-keepei-s, who had fallen dead at the 
desk, such is their weary air of business and 
calculation. Undertakers on duty would 
be sprightly beside them ; and a collation 
of funeral-baked meats, in comparison with 
these meals, would be a sparkling festivity. 

The people are all alike, too. There is 
no diversity of character. They travel 
about on the same errands, say and do the 
same things in exactly the same manner, 
and follow in the same dull, cheerless round. 
All down the long table there is scarcely a 
man who is in anything different from his 
neighbor. It is quite a relief to have sitting 
opposite that little girl of fifteen with the 
loquacious chin ; who, to do her justice, 
acts up to it, and fully identifies Nature's 
handwriting ; for, of all the small chatter- 
boxes that ever invaded the repose of 
drowsy ladies' cabins, she is the fii-st and 
foremost. The beautiful girl who sits a lit- 
tle beyond her — farther down the table 
there — married the young man with the 
dark whiskers, who sits beyond her, only 
last month. They are going to settle in 
the very Far West, where he has lived four 
years, but where she has never been. They 
were both overturned in a stage-coach the 
other day (a bad omen anywhere else 
where overturns are not so common), and 
his head, which bears the marks of a recent 
wound, is bound up still. She was hurt, 
too, at the same time, and lay insensible for 
some days, bright as her eyes are now. 

Farther down still sits a man who is 
going some miles beyond their place of des- 
tination, to " imjjrove " a newly discovered 
copper-mine. He carries the village — that 
is to be — with him ; a few frame-cottages, 
and an apparatus for smelting the copper. 
He carries its people, too. They are partly 
American, and partly Irish, and herd to- 
gether on the lower deck, where they 
amused themselves last evening, till the 
night was pretty far advanced, by alter- 
nately firing off pistols and singing hymns. 

They, and the very few who have been 
left at table twenty minutes, rise and go 
away. We do so, too ; and, passing through 
our little state-room, resume our seats in 
the (juiet galleiy without. 

A fine broad" river always, but in some 
parts much wider than in others ; and then 
there is usually a gi-een island covered with 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



83 



trees, dividing it into two streams. Occa- 
sionally we stop for a few minutes, maybe 
to take in wood, maybe for passengers, at 
some small town or village (I ought to say 
city ; every place is a city here) ; but the 
banks are for the most part deep solitudes 
overgrown with trees, which hereabouts are 
already in leaf and very green. For miles 
and miles and miles, these solitudes are un- 
broken by any sign of human life or trace 
of human footstep ; nor is anything seen to 
move about them but the blue-jay, whose 
color is so bright and yet so delicate that it 
looks like a flying flower. At lengthened 
intervals a log-cabin, with its little space of 
cleared land about it, nestles under a rising 
ground, and sends its thread of blue smoke 
curling up into the sky. It stands in the 
corner of the poor field of wheat, which is 
full of great unsightly stumps, like earthy, 
butchers' blocks. Sometimes the ground is 
only just now cleared ; the felled trees ly- 
ing yet upon the soil, and the log-house 
only this morning begun. As we pass this 
clearing, the settler leans upon his axe or 
hammer, and looks wistfully at the people 
from the world. The children creej^ out 
of the temporary hut, which is like a gypsy 
tent upon the ground, and clap their hands 
and shout. The dog only glances round at 
us, and then looks up into his master's face 
again, as if he were rendered uneasy by any 
suspension of the common business, and had 
nothing more to do with pleasurers. And 
still there is the same eternal foreground. 
The river has washed away its banks, and 
stately trees have fallen down into the 
stream. Some have been there so long 
that they are mere dry, grisly skeletons. 
Some have just toppled over, and, having 
earth yet about their roots, are bathing 
their green heads in the river, and putting 
forth new shoots and branches. Some are 
almost sliding down, as you look at them. 
And some were drowned so long ago that 
their bleached arms start out from the mid- 
dle of the current, and seem to try to grasp 
the boat, and drag it under water. 

Through such a scene as this the unwieldy 
machine takes its hoarse, sullen way ; vent- 
ing at every revolution of the paddles a loud, 
high-pressure blast ; enough, one would 
think, to waken up the host of Indians who 
lie buried in a great mound j'onder ; so old 
that mighty oaks and other forest trees have 
struck their roots into its eai-th ; and so high 
that it is a hill, even among the hills that 
Nature planted round it. The very river, 
as though it shared one's feelings of com- 
passion for the extinct tribes who lived so 



pleasantly here, in their blessed ignorance 
of white existence, hundreds of years ago, 
steals out of its way to ripple near this 
mound; and there are few places where the 
Ohio sparkles more brightly than in the Big 
Grave Creek. 

All this I see as I sit in the little stern- 
gallery mentioned just now. Evening slowly 
steals upon the landscape, and changes it be- 
fore me, when we stop to set some emigrants 
ashore. 

Five men, as many women, and a little 
girl. All their worldly goods are a bag, a 
large chest, and an old chair ; one old, high- 
backed, rush-bottomed chair ; a solitary set- 
tler in itself They are rowed ashore in the 
boat, Avhile the vessel stands a little off await- 
ing its return, the water being shallow. 
They are landed at the foot of a high bank, 
on the summit of which are a few log-cabins, 
attainable only by a long, winding path. It 
is growing dusk ; but the sun is very red, and 
shines in the water and on some of the tree- 
tops, like fire. 

The men get out of the boat first ; help 
out the women ; take out the bag, the chest, 
the chair ; bid the rowers " Good by," and 
shove the boat off" for them. At the first 
plash of the oars in the water, the ohlest wo- 
man of the party sits down in the old chair, 
close to the water's edge, without speaking 
a word. None of the others sit down, though 
the chest is large enough for many seats. 
They all stand where they landed, as if strick- 
en into stone, and look after the boat. So 
they remain, quite still and silent ; the old 
woman and her old chair in the centre; the 
bag and chest upon the shore, without any- 
body heeding them, all eyes fixed upon the 
boat. It comes alongside, is made fast, the 
men jump on board, the engine is put in mo- 
tion, and we go hoarsely on again. There 
they stand yet, without the motion of a hand. 
I can see them, through my glass, when, in 
the distance and increasing darkness, they 
are mere specks to the eye, lingering there 
still ; the old woman in the old chair, and all 
the rest about her; not stirring in the least 
degree. And thus I slowly lose them. 

The night is dark, and we proceed within 
the shadow of the wooded bank, which 
makes it darker. After gliding past the som- 
bre maze of boughs for a long time, we come 
upon an open space where the tall trees are 
burning. The shape of every branch and 
twig is expressed in a deep red glow ; and, 
as the light wind stirs and ruflles it, they 
seem to vegetate in fire. It is such a sight as 
we read of in legends of enchanted forests ; 
saving that it is sad to see these noble 



84 



AMERICAN NOTES 



works wasting away so awfully, alone ; and 
to think how many years must come and 
go before the magic that created them will 
rear their like upon this ground again. 
But the time will come ; and when, in their 
changed ashes, the growth of centuries un- 
boi-n has struck its roots, the restless men 
of distant ages will repair to these again 
unpeopled solitudes ; and their fellows, in 
cities far away, that slumber now, perhaps, 
beneath the rolling sea, will read, in lan- 
guage strange to any ears in being now, but 
very old to them, of primeval forests where 
the axe was never heard, and where the 
jungled ground was never trodden by a 
human foot. 

Midnight and sleep blot out these scenes 
and thoughts ; and when the morning 
shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a 
lively city, before whose broad paved wharf 
the boat is mooi-ed, with other boats, and 
flags, and moving wheels, and hum of men 
around it ; as though there were not a soli- 
tary or silent rood of ground within the 
Bjrtnpass of a thousand miles. 
^ Cincinnati is a beautiful city ; cheerful, 
thriving, and animated. I have not often 
seen a place that commends itself so favor- 
ably and pleasantly to a stranger at the 
first glance as this does, with its clean 
houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, 
and footways of bright tile. Nor does it 
become less prepossessing on a closer 
acquaintance. The streets are broad and 
airy, the shops extremely good, the private 
residences remarkable for their elegance 
and neatness. There is something of inven- 
tion and fancy in the varying styles of these 
latter erections, which, after the dull com- 
pany of the steamboat, is perfectly delight- 
ful, as conveying an assui-ance that there 
are such qualities still In existence. The 
disposition to ornament these pretty villas, 
and render them attractive, leads to the 
culture of trees and flowers, and the laying 
out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, 
to those who walk along the streets, is 
inexpressibly refreshing and agi-eeable. I 
was quite charmed with the appearance of 
tlie town, and its adjoining suburb of Mount 
Auburn ; from which the city, lying in an 
amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of 
remarkable beauty, and is seen to great 
advantage^ 

There happened to be a great Temper- 
ance Convention held here on the day after 
our arrival ; and as the order of march 
brought the procession under the windows 
of the hotel In which we lodged, when they 
started in the morning, I had a good oppor- 



tunity of seeing it. It comprised several 
thousand men, the members of various 
" Washington Auxiliary Temperance So- 
cieties," and was marshalled by ofhccrs on 
horseback, who cantered briskly up and 
down the line, with scarfs and ribbons of 
bright colors fluttering out behind them 
gayly. There were bands of music too, 
and banners out of number ; and it was 
a fresh, holiday-looking concourse alto- 
gether. 

I was particularly pleased to see the 
Irishmen, who formed a distinct society 
among themselves, and mustered very strong 
with their green scarfs; carrying their 
national Harp and their Portrait of Father 
Mathew high above the people's heads. 
They looked as jolly and good-humored as 
ever ; and, working (here) the hardest for 
their living, and doing any kind of stui'dy 
labor that came in their way, 'were the 
most independent fellows there, I thought. 

The banners were very well painted, and 
flaunted down the street famously. There 
was the smiting of the rock, and the gush- 
ing forth of the waters ; and there was a 
temperate man with " considerable of a 
hatchet " (as the standard-bearer would 
probably have said), aiming a deadly blow 
at a serpent which was apparently about to 
spring upon him from the top of a barrel of 
spirits. But the chief feature of this part 
of the show was a huge allegorical device, 
borne among the ship-carpenters, on one 
side Avhereof the steamboat Alcohol was 
represented bursting her boiler and ex- 
ploding with a great crash, while upon the 
other, the good ship Temperance sailed 
away with a fair wind, to the heart's content 
of the captain, crew, and passengers. 

After going round the town, the proces- 
sion repaired to a certain appointed place, 
where, as the printed programme set forth, 
it would be received by the children of the 
different free schools, " singing Temperance 
Songs." I was prevented from getting 
there in time to hear these Little "Warblers, 
or to report upon this novel kind of vocal 
entertainment ; novel, at least, to me ; but 
I found, in a large open space, each society 
gathered round its own banners, and listen- 
ing In silent attention to its own orator. 
The speeches, judging from the little I 
could hear of them, were certainly adapted 
to the occasion, as having that degree of 
relationship to cold water which wet blan- 
kets may claim ; but the main thing was the 
conduct and appearance of the audience, 
throughout the day ; and that was admira- 
ble and full of promise. 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



85 



Cincinnati is lionorably famous for its free 
scliools, of which it has so many, that no 
person's child among its population can, by 
possibility, want the means of education, 
which are extended, upon an average, to 
four thousand pupils annually. I was only 
present in one of these establishments dur- 
ing the hours of instruction. In the boys' 
department, which was full of little urchins 
(var^'ing in their ages, I should say, from 
six years old to ten or twelve), the master 
offered to institute an extemporary exam- 
ination of the pupils in algebra ; a proposal 
which, as I was by no means confident of 
my ability to detect mistakes in that science, 
I declined with some alarm. In the girls' 
school, reading was proposed ; and as I felt 
tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my 
willingness to hear a class. Books were 
distril^uted accordingly, and some half-doz- 
en girls relieved each other in reading par- 
agraphs from English history. But it 
seemed to be a dry compilation, infinitely 
above tlieir powers ; and when they had 
blundered through three or four dreary 
passages concerning the treaty of Amiens, 
and other thrijling topics of the same na- 
ture (obviously without comprehending ten 
words), I expressed myself quite satisfied. 
It is very possible that they only mounted 
to this exalted stave in the Ladder of Learn- 
ing for the astonishment of a visitor, and 
that at other times they keep upon its lower 
rounds ; but I should have been much bet- 
ter pleased and satisfied if I had heard 
them exercised in simpler lessons, which 
they understood. 

As in every other place I visited, the 
Judges here were gentlemen of high 
character and attainments. I was in 
one of the courts for a few minutes, and 
found it like those to which I have al- 
ready referred. A nuisance cause was try- 
ing; there were not many spectators; and 
the witnesses, counsel, and jury formed 
a sort of family circle, sufficiently jocose 
aml_*ftng. 

/The society with which I mingled was In- 
telligent, courteous, and agreeable. The 
inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their 
city, as one of the most interesting in Amer- 
ica ; and with good reason ; for beautiful 
and thriving as it is now, and containing, as 
it does, a population of fifty thousand souls, 
but two-and-fifly years have passed away 
since the ground on which it stands (bought 
at that time for a few dollars) was a wild 
wood, and Its citizens were but a handful 
of dwellers hi scattered log-huts upon the 
river's shore. 



•} 



CHAPTER XII. 



FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN AN- 
OTHER WESTERN STEAMBOAT ; AND 
FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN 
ANOTHER. ST. LOUIS. 

Leaving Cincinnati at eleven o'clock in 
the forenoon, we embarked for Louisville in 
the Pike steamboat, which, carrying the 
mails, was a packet of a much better class 
than that in which we had come from 
Pittsburg. As this passage does not occupy 
more than twelve or thirteen hours, we ar- 
ranged to go ashore that niglit, not coveting 
the distinction of sleeping in a state-room 
when it was possible to sleep anywhere 
else. 

There chanced to be on board this boat, 
in addition to the usual dreary crowd of 
passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the 
Choctaw tribe of Indians, who sent in Ids 
card to me, and with whom I had the pleas- 
ure of a long conversation. 

He spoke English perfectly well, though 
he had not begun to learn the language, 
he told me, until he was a young man 
grown. He had read many books ; and 
Scott's poetry appeared to have left a strong 
impression on his mind ; especially the 
opening of the Lady of the Lake, and the 
great battle scene in Marmion, in which, 
no doubt from the congeniality of the sub- 
jects to his own pursuits and tastes, he had 
great interest and delight. He appeared 
to understand correctly all he had read ; 
and whatever fiction had enlisted his sym- 
pathy in its belief had done so keenly and 
earnestly. I might almost say fiercely. 
He was dressed in our ordinary every-day 
costume, which hung about his fine figure 
loosely, and with indifferent grace. On 
my telling him that I regretted not to see 
him In his own attire, he threw up his right 
arm, for a moment, as though he were 
brandishing some heavy weapon, and an- 
swered, as he let it fall again, that his race 
were losing many things besides their dress, 
and would soon be seen upon the earth no 
more ; but he wore It at home, he added 
proudly. 

He told me that he had been away from 
his home, west of the IVIIssissipi)!, seventeen 
months, and was now returning. He had 
been chiefly at Washington on some nego- 
tiations pending between his tribe and the 
government, which were not settled yet 
(he said in a melancholy way), and he 
feared never would be ; for what could a 
few poor Indians do, against such well- 
skilled men of business as the whites ? He 



86 



AMERICAN NOTES 



had no love for Washington ; tired of towns 
and cities very soon ; and longed for the 
Forest and tlie Prairie. 

I asked hiiu what he thought of Congress. 
He answered, with a smile, that it wanted 
dignity, in an Indian's eyes. 

lie would very much like, he said, to see 
England before he died ; and spoke with 
much interest about the great things to be 
seen there. When I told him of that 
chamber in the British Museum wherein 
are preserved household memorials of a 
race that ceased to be, thousands of years 
ago, he was very attentive, and it was not 
hard to see that lie had a reference on his 
mind to tiie gradual fading away of his own 
people. 

This led us to speak of Mr. Catlin's gal- 
lery, which lie praised highly, observing 
that his own portrait was among the collec- 
tion, and that all the likenesses were " ele- 
gant." Mr. Cooper, he said, had painted 
the Red Man well ; and so would I, he 
knew, if I would go home with him and 
hunt buffaloes, which he was quite anxious 
I should do. When I told him that, sup- 
posing I went, I should not be very likely 
to damage the buffaloes much, he took It as 
a great joke and laughed heartily. 

He was a remarkably handsome man; 
some years past forty, I should judge ; with 
long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad 
cheek-bones, a sunburnt complexion, and a 
very bright, keen, dark, and piercing eye. 
There were but twenty thousand of the 
Choctaws left, he said, and their number 
was decreasing every day. A few of his 
brother chiefs had been obliged to become 
civilized, and to make themselves acquaint- 
ed with what the whites knew, for it was 
their only chance of existence. But they 
were not many ; and the rest were as they 
always had been. He dwelt on this, and 
said several times, that, unless they tried to 
assimilate themselves to their conquerors, 
they must be swept away before the strides 
of civilized society. 

When we shook hands at parting, I told 
him he must come to England, as he longed 
to see the land so much; that I should 
hope to see him there, one day; and that 
I could promise him he would be well re- 
ceived and kindly treated. lie was evi- 
dently pleased by this assurance, though he 
rejoined, with a good-humored smile and 
an arch shake of his head, that the English 
used to be very fond of the Ked Men, when 
they wanted their help, but had not cared 
much for them since. 

He took his leave; as stately and com- 



plete a gentleman of Nature's making as 
ever I beheld ; and moved among the peo- 
ple in the boat, another kind of being. He 
sent me a lithographed portrait of himself 
soon afterwards, very like, though scarcely 
handsome enough, which I have carefully 
preserved in memory of our brief acquaint- 
ance. 

There was nothing very Interesting In the 
scenery of this day's journey, which brought 
us at midnight to Louisville. A\'e slept at 
the Gait House, a splendid hotel, and were 
as handsomely lodged as though we had 
been in Paris, rather than hundreds of miles 
beyond the Alleghanies. 

The city presenting no objects of suffi- 
cient Interest to detain us on our way, we 
resolved to proceed next day by another 
steamboat, the Fulton, and to join it, about 
noon, at a suburb called Portland, where it 
would be delayed some time in ji'i^sing 
through a canal. 

/TTie interval after breakfast we devoted 
to riding through the town, which is regular 
and cheerful ; the streets being laid out at 
right angles, and planted with young trees. 
Tiie buildings are smoky and blackened, 
from the use of bituminous coal ; but an 
Englishman is well used to that appearance, 
and Indisposed to quarrel with it. There 
did not appear to be much business stir- 
ring ; and some unfinished buildings and 
improvements seemed to Intimate that the 
city had been overbuilt in the ardor of " go- 
ing ahead," and M'as suffering under the re- 
action consequent \ipon such feverish for- 
cing of its powers. J 

On our way to Portland we passed a 
" Magistrate's Office," which amused me, 
as looking far more like a dame school than 
any police establishment ; for this awful In- 
stitution was nothing but a little lazy good- 
for-nothing front parlor, open to the street ; 
wherein two or three figures (I presume the 
magistrate and his myrmidons) were bask- 
ing in the sunshine, the very effigies of lan- 
guor and repose. It was a perfect j)icture 
of Justice retired fi-om business for want of 
customei-s ; her sword and scales sold off; 
napping comfortably with her legs upon the 
table. 

Here, as elsewhere In these parts, the 
road was perfectly alive with pigs of all 
ages; lying about in every direction, fast 
asleep ; or grunting along in quest of hid- 
den dainties. I had always a sneaking 
kindness for these odd animals, and found a 
constant source of amusement, when all 
others failed, in watching their proceedings. 
As we were rldinfi along this morning, I 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



observed a little incident between two 
youthful pigs, which wa3 so very human as 
to be inexpressibly comical and grotesque 
at the time, though I dare say, in telling, 
it is tame enough. 

One young gentleman (a veiy delicate 
porker with several straws sticking about his 
nose, betokening recent investigations in a 
dunghill) was walking deliberately on, pro- 
foundly thinking, when suddenly his broth- 
er, who was lying in a miry hole unseen by 
him, rose up immediately before his startled 
eyes, ghostly with damp mud. Never was 
pig's whole mass of blood so turned. lie 
started back at least three feet, gazed for a 
moment, and then shot oif as hard as he 
could go ; his excessively little tail vibrat- 
ing with speed and terror, like a distracted 
pendulum. But before he had gone very 
far, he began to reason with himself as to 
the nature of this frightful appearance ; and 
as he reasoned, he relaxed his speed by 
gradual degrees, until at last he stopped, 
and faced about. There was his bi-other, 
with the mud upon him glazing in the sun, 
yet staring out of the very same hole, per- 
fectly amazed at his proceedings ! He was 
no sooner assured of this, — and he assured 
himself so carefully that one may almost 
say he shaded his eyes with his hand to see 
the better, — than he came back at a round 
trot, pounced upon him, and summarily took 
off a piece of his tail, as a caution to him to 
be careful what he was about for the future, 
and never to play tricks with his family any 
more. 

We found the steamboat in the canal, 
waiting for the slow process of getting 
through the lock, and went on board, where 
we shortly afterwards had a new kind of 
visitor in the person of a certain Kentucky 
Giant whose name is Porter, and who is of 
the moderate height of seven feet eight 
inches. In his stockings. 

There never was a race of people who 
so completely gave the lie to history as 
these giants, or whom all the chroniclers 
have so cruelly libelled. Instead of roaring 
and ravaging about the Avorld, constantly 
catering for their cannibal larders, and per- 
petually going to market in an unlawful 
manner, they are the meekest people In any 
man's acquaintance, rather Inclining to milk 
and vegetable diet, and bearing anything 
for a quiet life. So decidedly are amiabil- 
ity and mildness their characteristics, that I 
confess I look upon that youth who distin- 
guished himself by the slaughter of these 
inoffensive persons as a false-hearted brig- 
and, who, pretending to philanthropic mo- 



tives, was secretly influenced only by the 
wealth stored up within their castles, and 
the hope of plunder. And I lean the more 
to this opinion from finding that even the 
historian of those exploits, with all his par- 
tiality for his hero, is fain to admit that the 
slaughtered monsters in question were of a 
very innocent and simple turn ; extremely 
guileless and ready of belief; lending a 
credulous ear to the most improbable tales ; 
suffering themselves to be easily entrapped 
into pits ; and even, (as in the case of the 
Welsh Giant,) with an excess of the hospi- 
table politeness of a landlord, ripping them- 
selves open, rather than hint at the possi- 
bility of their guests being versed in tlie 
vagabond arts of sleight-of-hand, and hocus- 
pocus. 

The Kentucky Giant was but another 
illustration of the truth of this position. 
He had a weakness in the region of the 
knees, and a trustfulness in his long face, 
which appealed even to five-feet-nme for 
encouragement and support. lie was only 
twenty-five years old, he said, and had 
grown recently, for it had been found ne- 
cessary to make an addition to the legs of 
his inexpressibles. At fifteen he was a 
short boy, and in those days his English 
father and his Irish mother had rather 
snubbed him, as being too small of stature 
to sustain the credit of the family. He 
added that his health had not been good, 
though it was better now ; but short people 
are not wanting who whisper that he drinks 
too hard. 

I understand he drives a hackney-coach, 
though how he does it, unless he stands on 
the footboard behind, and lies along the 
roof upon his chest, with his chin in the 
l)ox, it would be difHcult to comprehend. 
He brought his gun with him, as a curios- 
ity. Christened " The Little Rifle," and 
displayed outside a shop-window, it would 
make the fortune of any retail business in 
Holborn. When he had shown himself and 
talked a little while, he withdrew, with his 
pocket-instrument, and went bobbing down 
the cabin, among men of six feet high and 
upwards, like a light-house walking among 
lamp-posts. 

Within a few minutes afterwards we 
were out of the canal, and in the Ohio 
River again. 

The arrangements of the boat were like 
those of The Messenger, and the passengers 
were of the same order of people. We fed 
at the same times, on the same kind of 
viands, in the same dull manner, and with 
the same observances. The company ap- 



88 



AMERICAN NOTES 



peared to be oppressed by the same tre- 
mendous concealments, and had as little 
capacity of enjoyment or light-beartedness. 
I never in my life did see such listless, 
heavy dulncss as brooded over these meals ; 
the very recollection of it weighs me down, 
and makes me, for the moment, wretched. 
Reading and writing on my knee, in our 
little cabin, I really dreaded the coming of 
the hour that summoned us to table ; and 
was as glad to escape from it again as if 
it had been a penance or a punishment. 
Healthy cheerfulness and good spirits form- 
ing a part of the banquet, I could soak my 
crusts in the fountain with Le Sage's stroll- 
ing player, and revel in their glad enjoy- 
ment ; but sitting down with so many fel- 
low-animals to ward off thirst and hunger 
as a business, — to empty each creature his 
Yahoo's trough as quickly as he can, and 
then slink sullenly away, — to have these 
social sacraments stripped of everything but 
the mere greedy satisfaction of the natural 
cravings, — goes so against the grain with 
me, that I seriously believe the recollection 
of these funeral feasts will be a waking 
nightmare to me all my life. 

Thei-e was some relief in this boat, too, 
which there had not been in the other, for 
the captain (a blunt, good-natured fellow) 
had his handsome wife with him, who was 
disposed to be lively and agreeable, as were 
a lew other lady passengers who had their 
seats about us at the same end of the table. 
But nothing could have made head against 
the depressing influence of the general body. 
There was a magnetism of dulness in them 
which would have beaten down the most 
facetious companion that the earth ever 
knew. A jest would have been a crime, 
and a smile would have faded into a gi'in- 
ulng horror. Such deadly leaden people ; 
such systematic, plodding, weary, insup- 
portable heaviness, such a mass of animated 
indigestion in respect of all that was genial, 
jovial, frank, social, or hearty ; never, sure, 
was brought together elsewhere since the 
world began. 

Nor was the scenery, as we approached 
the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers, at all inspiriting in its influence. 
The trees were stunted in their growth ; 
the banks were low and flat; the settle- 
ments and log-cabins fewer in number; 
their inhabitants more wan and wretched 
than any we had encountei-ed yet. No 
songs of birds were in the air, no pleasant 
scents, no moving lights and shadows from 
swift passing clouds. Hour after hour the 
changeless glare of the hot, unwinking sky 



shone upon the same monotonous objects. 
Hour after hour the river rolled along as 
weai-ily and slowly as the time itself 

/At length, upon the morning of the third 
day, we arrived at a spot so much more 
desolate than any we had yet beheld, 
that the forlornest places we had passed 
were, in comparison with it, full of interest. 
At the junction of the two rivers, on ground 
so flat and low and marshy, that at certain 
seasons of the year it Is inundated to the 
house-tops, lies a breeding-place of fever, 
ague, and death ; vaunted in England as a 
mine of Golden Hope, and speculated in, 
on the faith of monstrous representations, 
to many people's ruin. A dismal swamp, 
on which the half-built houses rot away ; 
cleared here and there for the space of a 
few yards; and teeming, then, with rank, 
unwholesome vegetation, in whose baleful 
shade the wretched wanderers who are 
tempted hither droop, and die, and lay 
their bones ; the hateful JNIississippi circling 
and eddying before it, and turning off upon 
its southern course, a slimy monster hideous 
to behold ; a hotbed of disease, an ugly 
sepulchre, a grave uncheered by any 
gleam of promise ; a jilace without one 
single quality, in earth or air or Avater, to 
commend it ; such is this dismal Cairo. 7 
But what words shall describe the Mis- 
sissippi, great father of rivers, who (praise 
be to Heaven ! ) has no young children like 
him ! An enormous ditch, sometimes two 
or three miles wide, running liquid mud, 
six miles an hour; its strong and frothy 
current choked and obstructed everywhere 
by huge logs and whole forest trees ; now 
twining themselves together in great rafts, 
from the interstices of which a sedgy, lazy 
foam works up, to float upon the water's 
top; now rolling past, like monstrous 
bodies, their tangled roots showing like 
matted hair; now glancing singly by, like 
giant leeches ; and now writhing round and 
round in the vortex of some small whirl- 
pool, like wounded snakes. The banks low, 
the trees dwarfish, the marshes swarming 
with frogs, the wretched cabins few and far 
apart, their inmates hollow-cheeked and 
pale, the weather very hot, mosquitoes pen- 
etrating into every crack and crevice of the 
boat, mud and slime on everything ; noth- 
ing pleasant in its aspect but the harmless 
lightning which flickers every night upon 
the dark horizon. 

For two days we toiled up this foul 
stream, striking constantly against the float- 
ing timber, or stopping to avoid those more 
dangerous obstacles, the snags or sawyers, 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



89 



which are the hidden trunks of trees that 
have their roots below the tide. When 
the nights are very dark, the lookout sta- 
tioned in the head of the boat knows by the 
ripple of the water if any great impediment 
be near at hand, and rings a bell beside 
him, which is the signal for the engine to 
be stopped; but always in the night this 
bell has work to do, and after every ring 
there comes a blow which renders it no easy 
matter to remain in bed. 

The decline of day here was very gor- 
geous, tingeing the firmament deeply with 
red and gold up to the very keystone of the 
arch above us. As the sun went down be- 
hind the bank, the slightest blades of grass 
upon it seemed to become as distinctly visi- 
ble as the arteries in the skeleton of a leaf, 
and when, as it slowly sank, the red and 
golden bars upon the water grew dimmer 
and dimmer yet, as if they were sinking 
too, and all the glowing colors of departing 
day paled, Inch by inch, before the sombre 
night, the scene became a thousand times 
more lonesome and more dreary than be- 
fore, and all its influences darkened with 
the sky. 

We drank the muddy water of this river 
while we were upon it. It is considered 
wholesome by the natives, and is something 
more opaque than gruel. I have seen wa- 
ter like it at the Filter shops, but nowhere 
else. 

On the fourth night after leaving Louis- 
ville we reached St. Louis, and here I wit- 
nessed the conclusion of an incident, trifling 
enough in itself, but very pleasant to see, 
which had interested me during the whole 
journey. 

There was a little woman on board with 
a little baby; and both little Avoman and 
little child were cheerful, good-looking, 
bright-eyed, and fair to see. The little wo- 
man had been passing a long time with her 
sick mother in New York, and had left her 
home in St. Louis in that condition in which 
ladles who truly love their lords desire to be. 
The baby was born in her mother's house, 
and she had not seen her husband (to whom 
she was now returning) for twelve months, 
having left him a month or two after their 
marriage. 

Well, to be sure there never was a little 
woman so full of hope, and tenderness, and 
love, and anxiety, as this little woman was ; 
and all day long she wondered whether 
" He " would be at the wharf, and whether 
" He " had got her letter, and whether, if 
she sent the baby ashore by somebody else, 
" He " would know it, meeting it in the 



street ; which, seeing that he had never set 
eyes upon it in his life, was not very likely 
in the abstract, but was probable enough to 
the young mother. She was such an artless 
little creature, and was in such a sunny, 
beaming, hopeful state, and let out all this 
matter clinging close about her heart so 
freely, that all the other lady passengers en- 
tered into the spirit of it as much as she ; 
and the captain (who heard all about It 
from his wife) was wondrous sly, I promise 
you, inquiring every time we met at table, 
as In forgetfulness, Avhether she expected 
anybody to meet her at St. Louis, and 
whether she would want to go ashore the 
night we reached it (but he supposed she 
wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes 
of that nature. There was one little, weazen, 
dried-apple-faced old woman, who took oc- 
casion to doubt the constancy of husbands 
in such circumstances of bereavement ; and 
there was another lady (with a lapdog) old 
enough to moralize on the lightness of hu- 
man affections, and yet not so old that she 
could help nursing the baby now and then, 
or laughing with the rest when the little wo- 
man called it by its father's name, and asked 
it all manner of fantastic questions concern- 
ing him in the joy of her heart. 

It was something of a blow to the little 
woman, that, when we were within twenty 
miles of our destination, it became clearly 
necessary to put this baby to bed. But she 
got over it with the same good-humor, tied a 
handkerchief round her head, and came out 
Into the little gallery with the rest. Then 
such an oracle as she became in reference 
to the localities ! and such facetlousness as 
was displayed by the married ladles ! and 
such sympathy as was shown by the single 
ones ! and such peals of laughter as the 
little woman herself (who would just as 
soon have cried) greeted every jest with ! 

At last there were the lights of St. Louis, 
and here was the wharf, and those were the 
steps, and the little woman covering her 
face with her hands, and laughing (or seem- 
ing to laugh) more than ever, ran into her 
own cabin, and shut herself up. I have no 
doubt that. In the charming inconsistency 
of such excitement, she stopped her ears, 
lest she should hear " Him " asking for her, 
biit I did not see her do it. 

Then a great crowd of people rushed on 
board, though the boat was not yet made 
fast, but was wandering about, among the 
other boats, to find a landing-place, and ev- 
erybody looked for the husband, and nobody 
saw him, when. In the midst of us all — 
Heaven knows how she ever got there — 



90 



AMERICAN NOTES 



there was the little woman clinging with 
both arms tight round the neck of a fine, 
good-looking, sturdy young fellow ! and in a 
moment atberwards, there she was again, 
actually clapping her little hands for joy, 
as she dragged him through the small door 
of her small cabin to look at the baby as he 
lay asleep ! 

We went to a large hotel, called the 
Planter's House, built like an English hos- 
pital, with long passages and bare walls, and 
skylights above the room doors for the free 
circulation of air. There were a great many 
boarders in it, and as many lights sparkled 
and glistened from the windows down into 
the street below, when we drove up, as if it 
had been illuminated on some occasion of 
rejoicing. It is an excellent house, and the 
proprietors have most bountiful notions of 
providing the creature comforts. Dining 
alone with my wife in our own room one 
day I counted fourteen dishes on the table 
y«rt once. 
/ In the old French portion of the town the 
V_thoroughfares are narrow and crooked, and 
some of the houses are very quaint and pic- 
turesque, being built of wood, with tumble- 
down galleries before the windows, ap- 
proachable by stairs, or rather ladders, from 
the street. There are queer little barbers' 
shops and drinking-houses too, in this quar- 
ter ; and abundance of crazy old tenements 
with blinking casements, such as may be 
seen in Flanders. Some of these ancient 
habitations, with high garret gable-windows 
perking into the roots, have a kind of French 
shi'ug about them ; and, being lop-sided with 
age, appear to hold their heads askew, be- 
sides, as if they were grimacing in astonish- 
ment at the American Improvements. 

It is hardly necessary to say, that these 
consist of wharves and warehouses, and new 
buildings in all directions ; and of a great 
many vast plans which are still " progress- 
ing." Already, however, some very good 
houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted 
shops have gone so far ahead as to be in a 
state of completion ; and the town bids fair 
in a few years to improve considerably, 
though it is not likely ever to vie, in point of 
elegance or beauty, with Cincinnati. 

The Roman Catliolic religion, introducecT 
here by the early French settlers, prevails 
extensively. Among the public institutions 
are a Jesuit College ; a convent for " the 
Ladies of the Sacred Heart"; and a large 
chapel attached to the college, which was m 
course of erection at the time of my visit, 
and was intended to be consecrated on the 
second of December in the next year. The 



architect of this building is one of the rev- 
erend lathers of the school, and the works 
proceed under his sole direction. The organ 
will be sent from Belgium. 

In addition to these establishments, there 
is a Roman Catholic cathedral, dedicated to 
Saint Francis Xavier ; and a hospital, found- 
ed by the numificence of a deceased resident 
who was a member of that church. It also 
sends missionaries from hence among the 
Indian tribes. 

The Unitarian chureh is represented, in 
this remote place, as in most other parts of 
America, by a gentleman of great worth and 
excellence. The jioor have good reason to 
remember and bless it, for it befriends them, 
and aids the cause of rational education, 
without any sectarian or selfish views. It is 
liberal in all its actions, of kind construction, 
and of wide benevolence. 

There arc three free schools already erect- 
ed, and in full operation in this city. A 
fourth is building, and will soon be opened. 

No man ever admits the unhealthiness of 
the place he dwells in (unless he is going 
away from it), and I shall therefore, I have 
no doubt, be at issue with the inhabitants 
of St. Louis, in questioning tlie perfect salu- 
brity of its climate, and in hinting that I 
think it must rather dispose to fever, in the 
summer and autumnal seasons. Just adding, 
that it is very hot, lies among great rivers, 
and has vast tracts of undrained swampy 
land around it, I leave the reader to form 
his own opinion. 

As I had a great desire to see a Prairie 
before turning back from the farthest point 
of my wanderings ; and as some gentlemen 
of the town had, in their hospitable consid- 
eration, an equal desire to gratify me ; a day 
was fixed, before my departure, for an ex- 
pedition to the Looking-Glass Prairie, which 
is within thirty miles of the town. Deeming 
it possible that my readers may not object 
to know what kind of thing such a gypsy 
party may be at that distance from home. 



and among what sort of objects it mov( 
will describe the jaunt in another chapter. 



CHAPTER XHL 

A JAUNT TO THE LOOKIXG-GLASS PRAI- 
RIE AND BACK. 

I MAY premise that the word Prairie is 
variously T^vonoimcad. paraaer, jyarearer, and 
paroarer. The latter mode of pi'onunciation 
is perhaps the most in favor. 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



91 



We were fourteen in all, and all young 
men ; indeed it is a singular, though very 
natural feature 'in the society of these dis- 
} tant settlements, that it is mainly composed 
of adventurous persons in the prime of life, 
and has very few gray heads among it. 
There were no ladies, — the trip being a fa- 
tiguing one, — and we were to start at five 
o'clock in the morning punctually. 

I was called at four, that I might be cer- 
tain of keeping nobody waiting ; and, hav- 
ing got some bread and milk lor breakfast, 
threw up the window and looked dovn in- 
to the street, expecting to see the whole 
party busily astir, and great preparations 
going on below. But as everything was 
very quiet, and the street presented that 
hopeless aspect with which five o'clock in 
the morning is familiar elsewhere, I deemed 
it as well to go to bed again, and went ac- 
cordingly. 

I awoke again at seven o'clock, and by 
that time the party had assembled, and were 
gathered round one light carriage, with a 
very stout axle-tree ; one something on 
wheels like an amateur carrier's cart ; one 
double phaeton of great antiquity and un- 
earthly construction ; one gig with a great 
hole in its back and a broken head ; and one 
rider on horseback who was to go on be- 
fore. I got into the first coach with three 
companions ; the rest bestowed themselves 
in the other vehicles ; two large baskets 
were made fast to the lightest ; two large 
stone jars in wicker cases, technically known 
as demijohns, were consigned to the " least 
rowdy " of the party for safe-keeping ; and 
the procession moved off to the terry-boat, 
in which it was to cross the river bodily, 
men, horses, carriages, and all, as the man- 
ner in these parts is. 

We got over the river in due course, and 
mustered again, before a little wooden box 
on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, 
with " MERCHANT TAILOR " painted in very 
large letters over the door. Having settled 
the order of proceeding, and the road to be 
taken, we started off once more, and began 
to make our way through an ill-favored 
Black Hollow, called, less expressively, the 
American Bottom. 

The previous day had been — not to say 
hot, for the term is weak and lukewarm in 
its power of conveying an idea of the tem- 
perature. The town bad been on fire, in a 
blaze. But at night it had come on to rain 
in torrents, and all night long it had rained 
without cessation. We had a pair of very 
strong horses, but travelled at the rate of 
little more than a couple of miles an hour, 



through one unbroken slough of black mud 
and water. It had no variety but in depth. 
Now it was only half over the wheels, now 
it hid the axle-tree, and now the coach sank 
down in it almost to the windows. The air 
resounded in all directions with the loud 
chirping of the frogs, who, with the pigs (a 
coarse ugly breed, as unwholesome-looking 
as though they were the spontaneous growth 
of the country), had the whole scene to 
themselves. Here and there we passed a 
log hut ; but the wretched cabins were wide 
apart and thinly scattered, for, though the 
soil is very, rich in this place, few people 
can exist in such a deadly atmosphere. On 
either side of the track, if it deserve the 
name, was the thick " bush " ; and every- 
where was stagnant, slimy, rotten, filthy 
water. 

As it is the custom in these parts to give 
a horse a gallon or so of cold water when- 
ever he is in a foam with heat, we halted 
for that purpose at a log inn in the wood, 
far removed from any otjj^r'residence. It 
consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare- 
walled, of course, with a loft above. The 
ministering priest was a swarthy young sav- 
age, in a shirt of cotton print like bed- 
furniture, and a pair of ragged trousers. 
There were a couple of young boys, too, 
nearly naked, lying idly by the well ; and 
they, and he, and the traveller at the inn, 
turned out to look at us. 

The traveller was an old man with a 
gray, grisly beard two inches long, a shaggy 
mustache of the same hue, and enormous 
eyebrows, which almost obscured his lazy, 
semi-drunken glance, as he stood regarding 
us with folded arms, poising himself alter- 
nately upon his toes and heels. On being 
addressed by one of the party, he drew 
nearer, and said, rubbing his chin (which 
scraped under his horny hand like fresh 
gravel beneath a nailed shoe), that he was 
from Delaware, and had lately bought a 
farm " down there," pointing into one of 
the marshes where the stunted trees were 
thickest. He was " going," he added, to 
St. Louis, to fetch his family, whom he 
had left behind ; but he seemed in no great 
hurry to bring on these encumbrances, for 
when we moved away, he loitered back into 
the cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping 
there so long as his money lasted. He was 
a great politician of course, and explained 
his opinions at some length to one of our 
company; but I only remember that he 
concluded with two sentiments, one of which 
was, Somebody forever, and the other, 
Blast everybody else ! which is by no means 



92 



AMERICAN NOTES 



a bad abstract of the general creed in these 
matters. 

When the horses were swollen out to 
about twice their natural dimensions (there 
seems to be an idea here that this kind of 
inflation improves their going), we went 
forward again, through mud and mire, and 
damp, and festei-ing heat, and brake and 
bush, attended always by the music of the 
frogs and pigs, until nearly noon, when we 
halted at a place called Belleville. 

Belleville was a small collection of wooden 
houses, huddled together in the very heart 
of the bush and swamp. Many of them had 
singularly bright doors of red and yellow ; 
for the place had been lately visited by a 
travelling painter, " who got along," as I 
was told, " by eating his way." The crim- 
inal court was sitting, and was at that mo- 
ment trying some criminals for horse-steal- 
ing, with whom it would most likely go 
hard ; for live stock of all kinds, being ne- 
cessarily very much exposed in the woods, is 
held by the community in rather higher 
value than human life ; and for this reason 
juries generally make a point of finding 
all men indicted for cattle-stealing guilty, 
whether or no. 

The horses belonging to the bar, the 
judge, and witnesses were tied to temjjora- 
ry racks set up roughly in the road, by 
which is to be understood a forest path, 
nearly knee-deep in mud and slime. 

There was an hotel in this place, which, 
like all hotels in America, had its large 
dining-room for the public table. It was 
an odd, shambling, low-roofed out-liouse, 
half cow-shed and half kitchen, with a coarse 
brown canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces 
stuck against the walls, to hold candles at 
supper-time. The horseman had gone for- 
ward to have coffee and some eatables pre- 
pared, and they were by this time nearly 
ready. He had ordered " wheat-bread and 
chicken-fixings," in preference to "corn- 
bread and common doings." The latter 
kind of refection includes only pork and 
bacon. The former comprehends broiled 
ham, sausages, veal cutlets, steaks, and such 
other viands of that nature as may be sup- 
posed, by a tolerably wide poetical construc- 
tion, " to fix " a chicken comfortably in the 
digestive organs of any lady or gentleman. 

On one of the door-posts at this inn was 
a tin plate, whereon was Inscribed in char- 
actei's of gold, " Doctor Crocus " ; and on a 
sheet of paper, pasted up by the side of this 
plate, was a written announcement that Dr. 
Crocus would that evening deliver a lecture 
on Phrenology for the benefit of the Belle- 



ville public, at a charge for admission of so 
much a head. 

Straying up stairs, during the prepara- 
tion of the chicken-fixings, I happened to 
pass the Doctor's chamber ; and as the door 
stood wide open, and the room was empty, 
I made bold to peep in. 

It was a bare, unfurnished, comfortless 
room, with an unframed portrait hanging 
up at the head of the bed ; a likeness, I 
take It, of the Doctor, for the forehead was 
fully dlsjjlayed, and great stress was laid by 
the artist upon its phrenological develop- 
ments. The bed itself was covered with an 
old patchwork counterpane. The room 
was destitute of carpet or of curtain. There 
was a damp fireplace without any stove, full 
of wood ashes ; a chair, and a very small 
table ; and on the last-named piece of fur- 
niture was displayed, in grand array, the 
Doctor's library, consisting of some half- 
dozen greasy old books. 

Now It certainly looked about the last 
apartment on the whole earth out of which 
any man would be likely to get anything to 
do him good. But the door, as I have said, 
stood coaxingly open, and plainly said, in 
conjunction with the chair, the portrait, the 
table, and the books, " "\\^alk in, gentlemen, 
walk in ! Don't be ill, gentlemen, when 
you may be well in no time. Doctor Cro- 
cus is here, gentlemen, the celebrated Doc- 
tor Crocus ! Doctor Crocus has come all 
this way to cure you, gentlemen. If you 
have n't heard of Doctor Crocus, it 's your 
fault, gentlemen, who live a little way out 
of the world here, not Doctor Crocus's. 
Walk in, gentlemen, walk in ! " 

In the passage below, when I went down 
stairs again, was Doctor Crocus himself 
A crowd had flocked in from the Court- 
House, and a voice from among them called 
out to the landlord, " Colonel ! inti'oduce 
Doctor Crocus." 

" Mr. Dickens," says the Colonel, " Doc- 
tor Crocus." 

Upon which Doctor Crocus, who is a tall, 
fine-looking Scotchman, but rather fierce 
and warlike In appearance for a professor 
of the peaceful art of healing, bursts out of 
the concourse with his right arm extended, 
and his chest thrown out as far as it will 
possibly come, and says, — 

'" Your countryman, sir ! " 

Whereupon, Doctor Crocus and I shake 
hands ; and Doctor Crocus looks as if I 
did n't by any means realize his expecta- 
tions, which, in a linen blouse, and a great 
straw hat with a green ribbon, and no 
gloves, and my face and nose profusely or- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



93 



namented with the stings of mosquitoes and 
the bites of bugs, it is very likely I did not. 

" Long in these parts, sir ? " says I. 

" Three or four months, sir," says the 
Doctor. 

" Do you think of soon returning to the 
old country, sir ? " says I. 

Doctor Crocus makes no verbal answer, 
but gives me an imploring look, which says 
so plainly, " Will you ask me that again, a 
little louder, if you please ? " that I repeat 
the question. 

" Think of soon returning to the old 
country, sir ! " repeats the Doctor. 

" To the old country, sir," I rejoin. 

Doctor Crocus looks round upon the 
crowd to observe the effect he j^roduces, 
rubs his hands, and says in a very loud 
voice : — 

" Not yet awhile, sir, not yet. You won't 
catch me at that just yet, sir. I am a little 
too fond of freedom for that, sir. Ha, ha ! 
It 's not so easy for a man to tear himself 
from a free country such as this is, sir. Ha, 
ha! No, no! Ha, ha! None of that tiU 
one 's obliged to do it, sir. No, no ! " 

As Doctor Crocus says these latter words, 
he shakes his head knowingly, and laughs 
again. Many of the by-standers shake their 
heads in concert with the Doctor, and laugh 
too, and look at each other as much as to 
say, " A pretty bright and first-rate sort of 
chap is Crocus ! " and, unless I am very 
much mistaken, a good many people went 
to the lecture that night who never thought 
about phrenology, or about Doctor Crocus 
either, in all their lives before. 

From Belleville we went on, through the 
same desolate kind of waste, and constant- 
ly attended, withoiit the interval of a mo- 
ment, by the same music ; until, at three 
o'clock in the afternoon, we halted once 
more at a village called Lebanon to inflate 
the horses again, and give them some corn, 
besides, of which they stood much in need. 
Pending this ceremony, I walked into the 
village, where I met a full-sized dwelling- 
house coming down-hill at a round trot, 
drawn by a score or more of oxen. 

The public-house was so very clean and 
good a one, that the managers of the jaunt 
resolved to return to it and put up there 
for the night, if possible. This course de- 
cided on, and the horses being well re- 
freshed, we again pushed forward, and 
came upon the Prairie at sunset. 

It would be difficult to say why or how, 
— though it was possibly from having heard 
and read so much about it, — but the effect 
on me was disappointment. Looking to- 



wards the setting sun, there lay, stretched 
out before my view, a vast expanse of level 
ground ; unbroken, save by one thin line of 
trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch 
upon the great blank, until it met the 
glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, 
mingling with its rich colors, and mellowing 
in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil 
sea or lake without water, if such a simile 
be admissible, with the day going down 
upon it ; a few birds wheeling here and 
there, and solitude and silence reigning 
paramount around. But the grass was not 
yet high ; there were bare black patches on 
the ground ; and the few wild-flowers that 
the eye could see were poor and scanty. 
Great as the picture was, its very flatness 
and extent, which left nothing to the imagi- 
nation, tamed it down and cramped its 
interest. I felt little of that sense of free- 
dom and exhilaration which a Scottish 
heath inspires, or even our English downs 
awaken. It was lonely and wild, but op- 
pressive in its barren monotony. I felt 
that, in traversing the Prairies, I could 
never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful 
of all else, as I should do instinctively, were 
the heather under my feet, or an iron-bound 
coast beyond ; but should often glance to- 
wards the distant and frequently receding 
line of the horizon, and wish it gained and 
passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, 
but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, 
as I saw it), to remember with much pleas- 
ure, or to covet the looking on again, in 
after life. 

We encamped near a solitary log-house, 
for the sake of its water, and dined upon 
the plain. The baskets contained roast 
fowls, buffalo's tongue (an exquisite dainty, 
by the way), ham, bread, cheese, and but- 
ter ; biscuits, champagne, sherry, lemons, 
and sugar for punch ; and abundance of 
rough ice. The meal was delicious, and 
the entertainers were the soul of kindness 
and good-humor. I have often recalled 
that cheerful party to my pleasant recollec- 
tion since, and shall not easily forget, in 
junketings nearer home with friends of 
older date, my boon companions on the 
Prairie. 

Returning to Lebanon that night, we 
lay at the little inn at which we had halted 
in the afternoon. In point of cleanliness 
and comfort it would have suffered by no 
comparison with any village alehouse, of a 
homely kind, in England. 

Rising at five o'clock next morning, I 
took a walk about the village ; none of tlic 
houses were strolling about to-day, but it 



94 



AMERICAN NOTES 



■was early for them yet, perhaps ; and then 
amused myself by lounging in a kind of 
firua-yard behind the tavern, of which the 
leading features were a strange jumble of 
rough wheels for stables ; a rude colonnade, 
built as a cool place of summer resort ; a 
deep well ; a great earthen mound for keep- 
ing vegetables in, in winter-time; and a 
pigeon-house, whose little apertures looked, 
as they do in all jjigeon-houses, very much 
too small for the admission of the plump 
and swelling-breasted birds who were strut- 
ting about it, though they tried to get in 
never so hard. That interest exhausted, I 
took a survey of the inn's two parlors, Avhich 
were decorated with colored prints of Wash- 
ington, and President Madison, and of a 
white-faced young lady (much speckled by 
the Hies), who held up her gold neck-chain 
for the admiration of the spectator, and in- 
formed all admiring comers that she was 
" Just Seventeen," although I should have 
thought her older. In the best room were 
two oil portraits of the kitcat size, repre- 
senting the landlord and his infant son ; 
both looking as bold as lions, and staring 
out of the canvas with an intensity that 
would have been cheap at any price. They 
were painted, I think, by the artist who had 
touched up the Belleville doors with red 
and gold ; for I seemed to recognize his 
style immediately. 

After breakfast we started to return by 
a different way from that which we had 
taken yesterday, and coming up at ten 
o'clock with an encampment of German 
emigrants carrying their goods in carts, 
who had made a rousing fire which they 
were just quitting, stopped there to refresh. 
And very pleasant the fire was ; for, hot 
though it had been yesterday, it was quite 
cold to-day, and the wind blew keenly. 
Looming in the distance, as we rode along, 
was another of the ancient Indian burial- 
places, called the Monk's Mound ; in mem- 
ory of a body of fanatics of the order of La 
Trappe, who founded a desolate convent 
there, many years ago, when there were no 
settlers within a thousand miles, and were 
all swept off by the pernicious climate ; in 
which lamentable fatality few rational peo- 
ple will suppose, perhaps, that society ex- 
perienced any very severe deprivation. 

The track of to-day had the same features 
as the ti'ack of yesterday. There was the 
swamp, the bush, the perpetual chorus of 
frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the un- 
wholesome steaming earth. Here and there, 
and fi-e(iuently too, we encountered a soli- 
tary broken-down wagon, full of some new 



settler's goods. It was a pitiful sight to see 
one of these vehicles deep in the mire, the 
axle-tree broken, the wheel lying idly by its 
side, the man gone miles away to look for 
assistance, the woman seated among their 
wandering household gods, with a baby at 
her breast, a jficture of forlorn, dejected 
patience, the team of oxen crouching down 
mournfully in the mud, and breathing forth 
such clouds of vapor, from their mouths and 
nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog 
around seemed to have come direct from 
them. 

In due time we mustered once again be- 
fore the merchant tailor's, and, having done 
so, crossed over to the city in the ferry- 
boat; passing, on the way, a spot called 
Bloody Island, the duelling-ground of St. 
Louis, and so designated in honor of the 
last fatal combat fought there, which was 
with pistols, breast to breast. Both com- 
batants fell dead upon the ground, and 
possibly some rational people may think of 
them, as of the gloomy madmen on the 
Monk's Mound, that they were no great 
loss to the community. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RETURN TO CINCINNATI. A STAGE-COACH 
RIDE FROM THAT CITY TO COLtTMBUS, 
AND THENCE TO SANDUSKY. SO, BY 
LAKE ERIE, TO THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 

As I had a desire to travel through the 
interior of the State of Ohio, and to " strike 
the lakes," as the phrase is, at a small town 
called Sandusky, to which that route would 
conduct us on our way to Niagara, we had 
to return from St. Louis by the way we 
had come, and to retrace our former track 
as far as Cincinnati. 

The day on which we were to take leave 
of St. Louis being very fine, and the steam- 
boat, which was to have started I don't 
know how early in the morning, postpon- 
ing, for the third or fourth time, her de- 
parture until the afternoon, we rode for- 
ward to an old French village on the river, 
called properly Carondelet, and nicknamed 
Vide Poche, and arranged that the packet 
should call for us there. 

The place consisted of a few poor cot- 
tages, and two or tlu-ee public-houses, the 
state of whose larders certainly seemed to 
justify the second designation of the vil- 
lage, for there was nothmg to eat in any of 
them, At length, however, by going back 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



some half a mile or so, we found a solitary 
house where ham and coffee were procura- 
ble ; and there we tarried to await the 
advent of the boat, which would come in 
sight ii'om the green before the door a long 
way off. 

It was a neat, unpretending village tav- 
ern, and we took our repast in a quaint 
little room with a bed in it, decorated with 
some old oil paintings, which in their time 
had probably done duty In a Catholic 
chapel or monastery. The tare was very 
good, and served with great cleanliness. 
The house was kept by a characteristic old 
couple, with whom we had a long talk, and 
who were perhaps a very good sample of 
that kind of people in the West. 

The landlord was a dry, tough, hard- 
faced old fellow (not so very old, either, for 
he was but just turned sixty, I should think), 
who had been out with the militia In the 
last war with England, and had seen all 
kinds of service — except a battle ; and he 
had been very near seeing that, he added, — 
very near. He had all his life been restless 
and locomotive, with an irresistible desire 
for change, and was still the son of his old 
I self, for if he had nothing to keep him at 
home, he said (slightly jerking his hat and 
his thumb towards the window of the I'oom 
in which the old lady sat, as we stood talk- 
ing In front of the house), he would clean 
up his musket, and be off to Texas to-mor- 
row morning. He was one of the very 
many descendants of Cain, jiroper to this 
continent, who seem destined from their 
birth to serve as pioneers in the great hu- 
man army, who gladly go on from year to 
year extending Its outposts, and leaving 
home after home behind them, and die at 
last, utterly regardless of their graves being- 
left thousands of miles behind by the wan- 
dering generation who succeed. 

His wife was a domesticated, kind-hearted 
old soul, who had come with him " from the 
queen city of the world," which. It seemed, 
was Philadelphia ; but had no love for this 
Western country, and indeed had little 
reason to bear it any, having seen her chil- 
dren, one by one, die here of fever in the 
full prime and beauty of their youth. Her 
heart was soi'e, she said, to think of them ; 
and to talk on this theme, even to stran- 
gers, in that blighted place, so far from her 
old home, eased it somewhat, and became 
a melancholy pleasure. 

The boat appearing towards evening, we 
bade adieu to the poor old lady and her 
vagrant spouse, and, making for the nearest 
landing-place, were soon on board The 



Messenger again, in our old cabin, and 
steaming down the Mississippi. 

If the coming up this river, slowly mak- 
ing head against the stream, be an Irksome 
journey, the shooting down it with the tur- 
bid current is almost worse ; for then the 
boat, proceeding at the rate of twelve or 
fifteen miles an hour, has to force its jias- 
sage through a labyrinth of floating logs, 
which, in the dark, it is often Impossible to 
see beforehand or avoid. All that night 
the bell was never silent for five minutes at 
a time ; and after every ring the vessel 
reeled again, sometimes beneath a single 
blow, sometimes beneath a dozen dealt in 
quick succession, the lightest of which 
seemed more than enough to beat in her 
frail keel as though It had been pic-crust. 
Looking down upon the filthy river after 
dark, It seemed to be alive with monsters, 
as these black masses rolled upon the sur- 
face, or came starting up again, head-first, 
when the boat, in ploughing her way among 
a shoal of such obstructions, drove a few 
among them, for the moment, under water. 
Sometimes the engine stopped during a 
long interval, and then before her and be- 
hind, and gathering close about her on all 
sides, were so many of these ill-favored ob- 
stacles, that she was faii'ly hemmed in, — 
the centre of a floating island, — and was 
constrained to pause until they parted 
somewhere, as dark clouds will do before 
the wind, and opened by degrees a channel 
out. 

In good time next morning, however, we 
came again In sight of the detestable morass 
called Cairo ; and, stopping there to take in 
wood, lay alongside a bai-ge whose starting 
timbers scarcely held together. It was 
nioored to the bank, and on its side was 
painted " Coffee Plouse," that being, I suji- 
pose, the floating paradise to which the 
people fly for shelter when they lose their 
houses for a month or two beneath the 
hideous waters of the Mississippi. But 
looking southward from this point, Ave had 
the satisfaction of seeing that Intolerable 
river dragging its slimy length and ugly 
freight abruptly off towards New Orleans ; 
and, passing a yellow line which stretched 
across the current, were again upon the 
clear Ohio, never, I trust, to see the Mis- 
sissippi more, saving in troubled di-eams 
and nightmares. Leaving It for the com- 
pany of its sparkling neighbor was like the 
transition fi-om pain to ease, or the awaken- 
ing fi-om a horrible vision to cheerful reali- 
ties. 

AVe arrived at Louisville on the fourth, 



96 



AMERICAN NOTES 



niglit, and gladly availed ourselves of its ex- 
cellent liotel. Next day we went on in the 
Ben Franklin, a beautiful mail steamboat, 
and reached Cincinnati shortly after mid- 
night. Being by this time nearly tired of 
sleeping upon shelves, we had remained 
awake to go ashore straightway ; and grop- 
ing a passage across the dark decks of oth- 
er boats, and among labyrinths of engine- 
machinery and leaking casks of molasses, we 
reached the streets, knocked up the porter 
at the hotel where we had stayed before, 
and were, to our great joy, safely housed 
soon afterwards. 

We rested but one day at Cincinnati, and 
then resumed our journey to Sandusky. 
As it comprised two varieties of stage-coach 
travelling, which, with those I have already 
glanced at, comprehend the main charac- 
teristics of this mode of transit in America, 
I will take the reader as our fellow-passen- 
ger, and pledge myself to perform the dis- 
tance with all possible despatch. 

Our place of destination in the first in- 
stance is Columbus. It is distant about a 
hundred and twenty miles from Cincinnati, 
but there is a macadamized road (rare 
blessing !) the whole way, and the rate of 
travelling upon it is six miles an hour. 

We start at eight o'clock in the morning, 
in a great mail-coach, whose huge cheeks 
are so very ruddy and plethoric, that it ap- 
pears to be troubled with a tendency of 
blood to the head. Dropsical it certainly 
is, for it will hold a dozen passengers inside. 
But, wonderful to add, it is very clean and 
bright, being nearly new ; and rattles 
through the streets of Cincinnati gayly. 

Our way lies through a beautiful country, 
richly cultivated, and luxuriant in its prom- 
ise of an abundant harvest. Sometimes 
we pass a field where the strong bristling 
stalks of Indian corn look like a crop of 
walking-sticks, and sometimes an enclosure 
where the green wheat is springing up 
among a labyrinth of stumps ; the pi-imitive 
worm-fence is universal, and an ugly thing 
it is ; but the farms are neatly kept, and, 
save for these differences, one might be 
travelling just now in Kent. 

We often stop to water at a roadside inn, 
which is always dull and silent. The coach- 
man dismounts and fills his bucket, and 
holds it to the horses' heads. There is 
scarcely ever any one to help him ; there are 
seldom any loungers standing round ; and 
never any stable-company with jokes to 
crack. Sometimes, when we have changed 
our team, there is a difficulty in starting 
again, arising out of the prevalent mode of 



breaking a young horse, — which is to 
catch him, harness him against his will, and 
put him in a stage-coach without further 
notice ; but we get on, somehow or other, 
after a great many kicks and a violent 
struggle ; and jog on as before again. 

Occasionally, when we stop to change, 
some two or three half-drunken loafers will 
come loitering out with their hands in their 
pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels 
in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the win- 
dow-sill, or sitting on a rail within the col- 
onnade : they have not often anything to 
say, though, either to us or to each other, 
but sit there idly staring at the coach and 
horses. The landlord of the inn is usually 
among them, and seems, of all the party, to 
be the least connected with the business of 
the house. Indeed he is, with reference to 
the tavern, what the driver is in relation to 
the coach and passengers : whatever hap- 
pens in his sphere of action, he is quite in- 
diffei-ent, and perfectly easy in his mind. 

The frequent change of coachmen works 
no change or variety in the coachman's 
character. He is always dirty, sullen, and 
taciturn. If he be capable of smartness of 
any kind, moi-al or physical, he has a facul- 
ty of concealing it which is truly marvel- 
lous. He never speaks to you as you sit 
beside him on the Isox ; and if you speak to 
him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables. 
He points out nothing on the road, and sel- 
dom looks at anything, being, to all appear- 
ance, thoroughly weary of it, and of exist- 
ence generally. As to doing the honors of 
his coach, his business, as I have said, is 
with the horses. The coach follows because 
it is attached to them, and goes on wheels ; 
not because you are in it. Sometimes, 
towards the end of a long stage, he sudden- 
ly breaks out into a discordant fragment 
of an election song ; but his face never sings 
along with him ; it is only his voice, and 
not often that. 

He always chews and always spits, and 
never encumbers himself with a pocket- 
handkerchief The consequences to the 
box passenger, especially when the wind 
blows towards him, are not agreeable. 

Whenever the coach stops, and you can 
hear the voices of the inside passengers, or 
whenever any by-stander addresses them, 
or any one among them, or they address 
each other, you will hear one phrase repeat- 
ed over and over and over again, to the 
most extraordinary extent. It is an ordi- 
nary and unpromising phrase enough, being 
neither more nor less than " Yes, sir " ; but 
it is adapted to every variety of circum- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



97 



stance, and fills up every pause in the con- 
versation. Thus : — 

The time is one o'clock at noon. The 
scene, a place where we are to stay to dine 
on this journey. The coach drives up to 
the door of an inn. The day is warm, and 
there are several idlers lingering about the 
tavern, and waiting for the i)ublic dinner. 
Among them is a stout gentleman in a 
brown hat, swinging himself to and fro in a 
rocking-chair on the pavement. 

As the coach stops, a gentleman in a 
straw hat looks out of the window. 

Straw Hat. (To the stout gentleman 
in the rocking-chair.) I reckon that's 
Judge Jefferson, ain't it? 

Brown Hat. (Still swinging ; speak- 
ing very slowly ; and without any emotion 
whatever.) Yes, sir. 

Straw Hat. Warm weather, Judge. 

Brown Hat. Yes, sir. 

Straw Hat. There was a snap of cold 
last week. 

Brown Hat. Yes, sir. 

Straw Hat. Yes, sir. 

A pause. They look at each other very 
seriously. 

Straw Hat. I calculate you'll have 
got through that case of the corporation. 
Judge, by this time, now? 

Brown Hat. Yes, sir. 

Straw Hat. How did the verdict go, 
sir? 

Brown Hat. For the defendant, sir. 

Straw Hat. (Interrogatively.) Yes, 
sir? 

Brown Hat. (Affirmatively.) Yes, sir. 

Both. (Musingly, as each gazes down 
the street.) Yes, sii-. 

Another pause. They look at each other 
again, still more seriously than before. 

Brown Hat. This coach is rather be- 
hind its time to-day, I guess. 

Straw Hat. (Doubtingly.) Yes, sir. 

Brown Hat. (Looking at his watch.) 
Yes, sir ; nigh upon two hours. 

Straw Hat. (Raising his eyebrows in 
very great surprise.) Yes, sir ! 

Brown Hat. (Decisively, as he puts 
up his watch.) Yes, sir. 

All the other inside Passengers. 
(Among themselves.) Yes, sir. 

Coachman. (In a very surly tone.) 
No, it ain't. 

Straw Hat. (To the coachman.) Well, 
I don't know, sir. We were a pretty tall 
time coming that last fifteen mile. That 's 
a fact. 

The coachman making no reply, and 
plainly dechning to enter into any contro- 
7 



versy on a subject so far removed from his 
sympathies and feelings, another passenger 
says, " Yes, sir " ; and the gentleman in the 
straw hat, in acknowledgment of his cour- 
tesy, says, " Yes, sir," to him, in return. 
The straw hat then inquires of the brown 
hat whether that coach in which he (the 
straw hat) then sits is not a new one. 
To which the brown hat again makes 
answer, " Yes, sir." 

Straav Hat. I thought so. Pretty 
loud smell of varnish, sir? 

Broavn Hat. Yes, sir. 

All the other inside Passengers. 
Yes, sir. 

Brown Hat. (To the company in gen- 
eral.) Yes, sir. 

The conversational powers of the com- 
pany having been by this time pretty heav- 
ily taxed, the straw hat opens the door and 
gets out ; and all the rest alight also. We 
dine soon afterwards with the boarders in 
the house, and have nothing to drink but 
tea and coffee. As they are both very bad, 
and the water is worse, I ask for brandy; 
but it is a Temperance Hotel, and spirits 
are not to be had for love or money. This 
preposterous forcing of unpleasant drinks 
down the reluctant throats of traveJlers is 
not at all uncommon in America, but I 
never discovei-ed that the scruples of such 
wincing landlords induced them to preserve 
any unusually nice balance between the 
quality of their fare and their scale of 
charges : on the contrary, I latlier suspect- 
ed them of diminishing the one and exalting 
the other, by way of recompense for the 
loss of their profit on the sale of spirituous 
liquors. After all, perhaps, the plainest 
course for persons of such tender consciences 
would be a total abstinence from tavern- 
keeping. 

Dinner over, we get into another vehicle 
which is ready at the door (for the coach 
has been changed in the interval), and re- 
sume our journey ; which continues through 
the same kind of country until evening, 
when we come to the town where we are 
to stop for tea and supper; and, having de- 
livered the mail-bags at the post-office, ride 
through the usual wide street, lined with 
the usual stores and houses (the drapers 
always having hung up at their door, by 
way of sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to 
the hotel where this meal is prepared. 
There being many boarders here, we sit 
down, a large party, and a very melancholy 
one, as usual. But there is a buxom hostess 
at the head of the table, and opposite, a 
simple Welsh schoolmaster with his wife 



98 



AMERICAN NOTES 



and child; who came here, on a specula- 
tion of greater promise than i-)erfbrniance, 
to teach the classics ; and they are sufKcient 
subjects of interest until the meal is over, 
and another coach is ready. In it we go 
on once more, lighted by a bright moon, 
until midnight ; when we stop to change 
the coach again, and remain for half an 
hour or so in a miserable room, with a 
blurred lithograph of Washington over the 
smoky fireplace, and a mighty jug of cold 
water on the table : to which refreshment 
the moody passengers do so apply them- 
selves, that they would seem to be, one and 
all, keen patients of Doctor Sangrado. 
Among them is a very little boy, who chews 
tobacco like a very big one ; and a droning 
gentleman, who talks arithmetically and 
statistically on all subjects, from poetry 
downwards ; and who always speaks in the 
same key, with exactly the same emphasis, 
and with very grave deliberation. He 
came outside just now, and told me how 
that the uncle of a certain young lady who 
had been spirited away and married by a 
certain captain, lived in these parts ; and 
how this uncle was so valiant and ferocious, 
that he should n't wonder if he were to fol- 
low the said captain to England, " and shoot 
him down in the street, wherever he found 
him " ; in the feasibility of which strong 
measure I, being for the moment rather 
prone to contradiction from feeling half 
asleep and very tired, declined to acqui- 
esce ; assuring him that if the uncle did re- 
sort to it, or gratified any other little whim 
of the like nature, he would find himself one 
morning prematurely throttled at the Old 
Bailey ; and that he would do well to make 
his will before he went, as he would certain- 
ly want it before he had been in Britain 
very long. 

On we go, all night, and by and by the 
day begins to break, and presently the first 
cheerful rays of the warm sun come slanting 
on us brightly. It sheds its light upon a 
miserable waste of sodden grass, and dull 
trees, and squalid huts, whose aspect is for- 
lorn and grievous in the last degree, — a 
very desert in the wood, whose growth of 
green is dank and noxious like that upon 
the top of standing water ; Avhere poisonous 
fungus grows in the rare footprint on the 
oozy ground, and sprouts like witches' coral 
from the crevices in the cabin wall and 
floor. It is a hideous thing to lie upon the 
very threshold of a city. But it was pur- 
chased years ago, and, as the owner cannot 
be dircovered, the State has been unable to 
reclaim it. So there it remains, in the 



midst of cultivation and improvement, like 
ground accursed, and made obscene and 
rank by some great crime. 

We reached Columbus shortly before sev- 
en o'clock, and stayed there, to refresh, that 
day and night, having excellent apartments 
in a very large unfinished hotel called the 
Neill House, which were richly fitted with 
the polished wood of the black walnut, and 
opened on a handsome portico and stone 
veranda, hke rooms in some Italian man- 
sion. The town is clean and pretty, and 
of course is " going to be " much larger. 
It is the seat of the State Legislature of 
Ohio, and lays claim in consequence to 
some consideration and importance. 

There being no stage-coach next day, 
upon the road we wished to take, I hired 
" an extra," at a reasonable charge, to carry 
us to Tiffin, a small town from whence 
there is a railroad to Sandusky. This ex- 
tra was an ordinary four-horse stage-coach, 
such as I have described, changing horses 
and drivers, as the stage-coach would, but 
was exclusively our own for the journey. 
To insure our having horses at the proper 
stations, and being incommoded by no 
strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on 
the box, who was to accompany us the 
whole way through ; and thus attended, 
and bearing with us, besides, a hamper full 
of savory cold meats, and fruit, and wine, 
we started off again, in high spirits, at half 
past si.x o'clock next morning, very much 
delighted to be by ourselves, and disposed 
to enjoy even the roughest journey. 

It was well for us that we were in this 
humor, for the road we went over that 
day was certainly enough to have shaken 
tempers that were not resolutely at Set 
Fair, down to some inches below Stormy. 
At one time we were all flung together in 
a heap at the bottom of the coach, and at 
another we were crushing our heads against 
the roof Now one side was down deep in 
the mire, and we were holding on to the 
other. Now the coach was lying on the 
tails of the two wheelers ; and now it was 
rearing up in the air, in a frantic state, 
with all four horses standing on the top of 
an insurmountable eminence, looking coolly 
back at it, as though they would say, " Un- 
harness us. It can't be done." The driv- 
ers on these roads, who certainly get over 
the ground in a manner which is quite mi- 
raculous, so twist and turn the team about 
in forcing a passage, corkscrew fashion, 
through the bogs and swamps, that it was 
quite a common circumstance, on looking 
out of the window, to see the coachman 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



9D 



with the ends of a pair of reins in his 
hands, apparently driving nothing, or play- 
ing at hoi-ses, and the leaders staring at 
one unexpectedly from the back of the 
coach, as if they had some idea of getting 
up behind. A great portion of the way 
was over what is called a corduroy road, 
which is made by throwing trunks of trees 
into a marsh, and leaving them to settle 
there. The very slightest of the jolts with 
which the ponderous carriage fell from log 
to log was enough, it seemed, to have dis- 
located all the bones in the human body. 
It would be impossible to experience a simi- 
lar set of sensations, in any other circum- 
stances, unless, perhaps, in attempting to go 
up to the top of St. Paul's in an omnibus. 
Never, never once, that day, was the coach 
in any position, attitude, or kind of motion 
to which we are accustomed in coaches. 
Never did it make the smallest approach to 
one's experience of the jiroceedings of any 
sort of vehicle that goes on wheels. 

Still, it was a fine day, and the tempera- 
ture was delicious, and though we had left 
summer behind us in the West, and were 
fast leaving spring, we were moving to- 
wards Niagara and home. We alighted in 
a pleasant wood towards the middle of the 
day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our 
best fragments with a cottager, and our 
worst with the pigs (who swarm in this part 
of the country like grains of sand on the 
sea-shore, to the great comfort of our com- 
missariat in Canada), we went forward 
again gayly. 

As night came on, the track grew nar- 
rower and narrower, until at last it so lost 
itself among the trees that the driver seemed 
to find his way by instinct. AVe had the 
comfort of knowing, at least, that there was 
no danger of his tailing asleep, for every 
now and then a wheel would strike against 
an unseen stump with such a jerk that he 
was fain to hold on pretty tight and pretty 
quick, to keep himself upon the box. Nor 
was there any reason to dread the least 
danger from furious driving, inasmuch as 
over that broken gi-ound the horses had 
enough to do to walk ; as to shying, there 
was no room for that ; and a herd of wild 
elephants could not have run away in such 
a wood, with such a coach at their heels. 
So we stumbled along quite satisfied. 

These stumps of trees are a curious fea- 
ture in American travelling. The varying 
illusions they present to the unaccustomed 
eye, as it grows dark, are quite astonishing 
in their number and reality. Now there is 
a Grecian urn erected in the centre of a 



lonely field ; now there is a woman weeping 
at a tomb; now a very commonplace old 
gentleman in a white waistcoat, with a 
thumb thrust into each armhole of his coat; 
now a student poring on a book ; now a 
crouching negi'o ; now a horse, a dog, a can- 
non, an armed man ; a hunchback throwing 
off his cloak and stepping forth into the 
light. They were often as entertaining to 
me as so many glasses in a magic lantern, 
and never took their shapes at my bidding, 
but seemed to force themselves upon me, 
whether I would or no ; and, strange to say, 
I sometimes recognized in them counter- 
parts of figures once familiar to me in pic- 
tures attached to childish books forgotten 
long ago. 

It soon became too dark, however, even 
for this amusement, and the trees were so 
close together, that their dry branches rat- 
tled against the coach on either side, and 
obliged us all to keep our heads within. It 
lightened, too, for three whole hours, each 
flash being very bright and blue and long ; 
and as the vivid streaks came darting in 
among the crowded branches, and the thun- 
der rolled gloomily above the tree-tops, one 
could scarcely help thinking that there were 
better neighborhoods at such a time than 
thick woods afforded. 

At length, between ten and eleven o'clock 
at night, a few feeble lights appeared in the 
distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian 
village where we were to stay till morning, 
lay before us. 

They were gone to bed at the log inn, 
which was the only house of entertainment 
in the place, but soon answered to our 
knocking, and got some tea for us in a sort 
of kitchen or common room, tapestried with 
old newspapers pasted against the wall. 
The bedchamber to which my wife and I 
were shown was a large, low, ghostly room : 
with a quantity of withered branches on 
the hearth, and two doors, without any fas- 
tening, opposite to each othei-, both oi:)ening 
on the black night and wild country, and so 
contrived that one of them always blew the 
other open ; a novelty in domestic architec- 
ture which I do not remember to have seen 
before, and which I Avas somewhat disconcert- 
ed to have forced on my attention after get- 
ting into bed, as I had a considerable sum 
in gold for our travelling expenses in my 
dressing-case. Some of the luggage, how- 
ever, piled against the panels soon settled 
this difficulty, and my sleep would not have 
been very much affected that night, I be- 
lieve, though it had failed to do so. 

My Boston friend climbed up to bed some- 



100 



AMERICAN NOTES 



where in the roof, where another guest was 
already snoring hugely. But being bitten 
beyond his power of endurance, he turned 
out again and lied for shelter to the coach, 
which was airing itself in front of the house. 
This was not a very politic step as it turned 
out, for the pigs scenting him, and looking 
upon the coach as a kind of y>io with some 
manner of meat inside, grunted round it so 
hideously that he was afraid to come out 
again, and lay there shivering till morning. 
Nor was it possible to warm him, when he 
did come out, by means of a glass of brandy ; 
for in Indian villages the Legislature, with 
a very good and wise intention, forbids the 
sale of spirits by tavern-keepers. The pre- 
caution, however, is quite inefficacious, for 
the Indians never fail to procure liquor of 
a worse kind, at a dearer price, from trav- 
elling pedlers. 

It is a settlement of the "Wyandot In- 
dians who inhabit this place. Among the 
company at breakfast was a mild old gen- 
tleman, who had been for many years em- 
ployed by the United States government in 
conducting negotiations with the Indians, 
and who had just concluded a treaty with 
these people by which they bound them- 
selves, in consideration of a certain annual 
sum, to remove next year to some land pro- 
vided for them, west of the Mississippi, and 
a little way beyond St. Louis. He gave 
me a moving account of their strong at- 
tachment to the familiar scenes of their in- 
fancy, and in particular to the burial-places 
of their kindred, and of their great reluc- 
tance to leave them. lie had witnessed 
many such removals, and always with pain, 
though he knew that they departed for 
their own good. The question whether 
this tribe should go or stay had been dis- 
cussed among them a day or two before, in 
a hut erected for the purpose, the logs of 
which still lay upon the ground before the 
inn. When the speaking was done, the 
ayes and noes were ranged on opposite 
sides, and every male adult voted in his 
turn. The moment the result was known, 
the minority (a large one) cheerfully yield- 
ed to the rest, and withdrew all kind of 
opposition. 

We mot some of these poor Indians after- 
wards riding on shaggy ponies. They were 
so like the meaner sort of gypsies, that, if I 
could have seen any of them in England, I 
should have concluded, as a matter of 
course, that they belonged to that wander- 
ing and restless people. 

Leaving this town directly after break- 
fast, we pushed forward again, over a rather 



worse road than yesterday, if possible, and 
arrived about noon at Tiffin, where we 
parted with the extra. At two o'clock we 
took the railroad ; the travelling on which 
was very slow, its construction being indif- 
ferent, and the ground wet and marshy ; 
and arrived at Sandusky in time to dine 
that evening. We put up at a comfortable 
little hotel on the brink of Lake Erie, lay 
there that night, and had no choice but to 
wait there next day, until a steamboat 
bound for Buffalo appeared. The town, 
which was sluggish and uninteresting 
enough, was something like the back of an 
English watering-place out of the season. 
•^Our host, who was very attentive and 
anxious to make us comfortable, was a 
handsome middle-aged man, who had come 
to this town from New England, in which 
part of the country he was " raised." When 
I say that he constantly walked in and out 
of the room with his hat on, and stopped 
to converse in the same free-and-easy state, 
and lay down on our sofa, and pulled his 
newspaper out of his pocket, and read it at 
his ease, I merely mention these traits as 
characteristic of the country, — not at all as 
being matter of complaint, or as having 
been disagreeable to me. I should un- 
doubtedly be offended by such proceedings 
at home, because there they are not the 
custom, and where they are not, they would 
be impertinences ; but in America, the only 
desire of a good-natured fellow of this kind 
is to treat his guests hospitably and well ; 
and I had no more right, and, I can truly 
say, no more disposition, to measure his 
conduct by our English rule and standard, 
than I had to quarrel with him for not be- 
ing of the exact stature which would quali- 
fy him for admission into the Queen's gren- 
adier guards. As little inclination had I to 
find fault with a funny old lady who was 
an upper domestic in this establishment, 
and who, when she came to wait upon us at 
any meal, sat herself down comfortably in 
the most convenient chair, and, producing 
a large pin to pick her teeth with, remained 
performing that ceremony, and steadfastly 
regarding us meanwhile with much gravity 
and composure (now and then pressing us 
to eat a little more), until it was time to 
clear away. It was enough for us, that 
whatever we wished done was done with 
great civility and readiness, and a desire 
to oblige, not only here, but everywhere 
else ; and that all our wants were, in gen- 
eral, zealously anticipated.^ 

We were taking an early dinner at this 
house, on the day after our arrival, which 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



■was Sunday, when a steamboat came in 
sight, and presently touched at the wharf. 
As slie proved to be on her way to Buffalo, 
we hurried on board with all speed, and 
soon left Sandusky far behind us. 

She was a large vessel of five hundred 
tons, and handsomely fitted up, though with 
high-pi-essure engines; which always con- 
veyed that kind of feeling to me which I 
should be likely to experience, I think, if I 
had lodgings on the first floor of a powder- 
mill. She was laden with flour, some casks 
of which commodity were stored ujjon the 
deck. The captain, coming up to have a lit- 
tle conversation, and to introduce a friend, 
seated himself astride of one of these barrels, 
like a Bacchus of private life ; and, pulling 
a great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began 
to " whittle " it as he talked, by paring thin 
slices off" the edges. And he whittled with 
such industry and hearty good-will, that, but 
for his being called away very soon, it must 
have disappeared bodily, and left nothing in 
its place but grist and shavings. 

After calling at one or two flat places with 
low dams stretching out into the lake, where- 
on were stumpy light-houses, like windmills 
without sails, the whole looking like a Dutch 
vignette, we came at midnight to Cleveland, 
where we lay all night, and until nine 
o'clock next morning. 

I entertained quite a curiosity in reference 
to this place, from having seen at Sandusky 
a specimen of its literature in the shape of a 
newspaper, which was very strong indeed 
upon the subject of Lord Ashburton's recent 
arrival at Washington to adjust the points 
in dispute between the United States gov- 
ernment and Great Britain ; informing its 
readers that as America had " whipped " 
England in her infancy, and whipped her 
again in her youth, so it was clearly neces- 
sary that she must whip her once again in 
her maturity ; and pledging its credit to all 
True Americans, that if Mr. Webster did 
his duty in the approaching negotiations, 
and sent the English Lord home again in 
double-quick time, they should, within two 
years, sing " Yankee Doodle in Hyde Park, 
and Hail Columbia in the scarlet courts of 
Westminster " ! I found it a pretty town, 
and had the satisfaction of beholding the out- 
side of the office of the journal from which 
I have just quoted. I did not enjoy the de- 
light of seeing the wit who indited the par- 
agraphs in question, but I have no doubt he 
is a prodigious man in his way, and held in 
high repute by a select circle. 

There was a gentleman on board to whom, 
as I unintentionally learned through the thin 



partition which divided our state-room from 
the cabin in which he and his wife conversed 
together, I was unwittingly, the occasion of 
very great uneasiness. I don't know why or 
wherefore, but I appeared to run in his mind 
perpetually, and to dissatisfy him very much. 
First of all I heard him say, — and the most 
ludicrous part of the business was, that he 
said it in my very ear, and could not have 
communicated more directly with me if he 
had leaned upon my shoulder, and whispered 
me, — " Boz is on board still, my dear." 
After a considerable pause, he added, com- 
plainlngly, "Boz keeps himself very close"; 
which was true enough, for I was not very 
well, and was lying down with a book. I 
thought he had done with me after this, but 
I was deceived ; for a long Interval having 
elapsed, during which I imagine him to have 
been turning restlessly from side to side, and 
trying to go to sleep, be broke out again with, 
" I suppose that Boz will be writing a book 
by and by, and putting all our names In it ! " 
at which imaginary consequence of being on 
board a boat with Boz he groaned and be- 
came silent. 

We called at the town of Erie at eight 
o'clock that night, and lay there an hour. 
Between five and six next morning we ar- 
rived at Buffalo, where we breakfasted ; and 
being too near the Great Falls to wait pa- 
tiently anywhere else, we set off" by the train 
the same morning at nine o'clock to Niagara. 

It was a miserable day, chilly and raw, a 
damp mist falling, and the trees in that 
northern region quite bare and wintry. 
Whenever the train halted I listened for the 
roar, and was constantly straining niy eyes 
in the direction where I knew the Falls must 
be, from seeing the river rolling on towards 
them, every moment expecting to behold 
the spray. Within a few minutes of our 
stopping, not before, I saw two great white 
clouds rising up slowly and majestically from 
the depths of the earth. That was all. At 
length we alighted, and then for the first 
time I heard the mighty rush of water, 
and felt the ground tremble underneath 
my feet. 

The bank is very steep, and was slippery 
with rain and half-melted Ice. I hardly 
know how I got down, but I was soon at 
the bottom, and climbing, with two English 
officers who were crossing and had joined 
me, over some broken rocks, deafened by 
the noise, half blinded by the sjiray, and 
wet to the skin. AVe were at the foot of 
the American Fall. I could see an im- 
mense torrent of water tearing headlong 
down from some m-eat height, but had no 



102 



AMERICAN NOTES 



idea of shape, or situation, or anything but 
vapue immensity. 

When we were seated in the little ferry- 
boat, and were crossing the swollen river 
immediately before both cataracts, 1 began 
to feel what it was ; but I was in a manner 
stunned, and unable to compi-ehend the 
vastness of the scene. It was not until I 
came on Table Rock, and looked — Great 
Heaven, on what a foil of bright green 
water ! — that it came upon me in its full 
might and majesty. 

Then, when I felt how near to my Crea- 
tor I was standing, the first effect and the 
enduring one — instant and lasting — of the 
tremendous spectacle, was Peace. Peace 
of Mind, tranquillity, calm recollections of 
the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest 
and Happiness : nothing of gloom or terror. 
Niagara was at once stamped upon my 
heart, an Image of Beauty ; to remain there, 
changeless and indelible, until its pulses 
cease to beat forever. 

O, how the strife and trouble of daily 
life receded from my view, and lessened in 
the distance, during the ten memorable days 
we passed on that Enchanted Ground ! 
What voices spoke from out the thunder- 
ing water; what faces, faded from the 
earth, looked out upon me from its gleam- 
ing deptlis ; what Heavenly promise glis- 
tened in those angels' tears, the drops of 
many hues, that showered around, and 
twined themselves about the gorgeous arch- 
es which the changing rainbows made ! 

I never stirred in all that time from the 
Canadian side, whither I had gone at first. 
I never crossed the river again ; for I knew 
there were people on the other shore, and 
in such a jilace it is natural to shun strange 
company. To wander to and fro all day, 
and see the cataracts from all points of 
view ; to stand upon the edge of the Great 
Horseshoe Fall, marking the hurried water 
gathering strength as it approached the 
verge, yet seeming, too, to pause before it 
shot into the gulf below ; to gaze from the 
river's level up at the torrent as it came 
streaming down ; to climb the neighboring 
heights and watch it through the trees, and 
see the wreathing water in the rapids hur- 
rying on to take its fearful plunge ; to lin- 
ger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three 
miles below, watching the river as, stirred 
by no visible cause, it heaved and eddied 
and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, 
far down beneath the surface, by its giant 
leap; to have Niagara before me, lighted 
by the sun and by the moon, red in the day's 
decline, and gray as evening slowly fell up- 



on it ; to look upon it every day, and wake 
up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice : 
this was enough. 

I think in every quiet season now, still 
do those waters roll and leap, and roar and 
tumble, all day long ; still are the rainbows 
spanning them, a hundred feet below. Still, 
when the sun is on them, do they shine and 
glow like molten gold. Still, when the day 
is gloomy, do they fall like snow, or seem 
to crumble away like the front of a great 
chalk cliff, or roll down the rock like dense 
white smoke. But always does the mighty 
stream appear to die as it comes down, and 
always from its unfathomable grave arises 
that tremendous ghost of spray and mist 
which is never laid, — which has haunted 
this place with the same dread solemnity 
since Darkness brooded on the deep, and 
that first flood before the Deluge — Light 
— came rushing on Creation at the word 
of God. 



CHAPTER XV. 

IX CAXADA ; TOROXTO ; KIXGSTOX : MON- 
TREAL ; QUEBEC ; ST. JOHX'S. IX THE 
UNITED STATES AGAIX ; LEBAXOX ; 
THE SHAKER VILLAGE ; AXD WEST 
rOIXT. 

I WISH to abstain from instituting any 
comparison, or drawing any parallel what- 
ever, between the social features of the 
United States and those of the British pos- 
sessions in Canada. For this reason I shall 
confine myself to a very brief account of 
our journeyings in the latter territory. 

But before I leave Niagara I must advert 
to one disgusting circumstance, which can 
hardly have escaped the observation of 
any decent traveller who has visited the 
Falls. 

On Table Rock there is a cottage be- 
longing to a Guide, where little relics of the 
place are sold, and where visitors register their 
names in a book kept for the purpose. On 
the wall of the room in which a great many 
of these volumes are preserved the follow- 
ing request is posted : " Visitors will please 
not copy nor extract the remarks and poet- 
ical effusions from the registers and albums 
kept here." 

But for this intimation, I should have let 
them lie upon the tables on which they 
were strewn with careful negligence, like 
books in a drawing-room ; being quite satis- 
fied with the stupendous silliness of certain 
stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



103 



each, whicli were framed and hung up on 
the wall. Curious, however, after reading 
this announcement, to see what kind of 
moi-sels were so carefully preserved, I 
turned a few leaves, and found them 
scrawled all over with the vilest and the 
filthiest ribaldry that ever human hogs de- 
lighted in. 

It is humlhating enough to know that 
there are among men brutes so obscene and 
worthless, that they can delight in laying 
their miserable profanations upon the very 
steps of Nature's greatest altar. But that 
these should be hoarded up for the de- 
light of their fellow-swine, and kept in a 
public place where any eyes may see them, 
is a disgrace to the English language in 
which they are written (though I hope few 
of these entries have been made by English- 
men), and a reproach to the English side 
on which they are preserved. 

The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara 
are finely and airily situated. Some of 
them are large detached houses on the 
plain above the Falls, which were original- 
ly designed for hotels ; and in the evening 
time, when the women and children were 
leaning over the balconies watching the 
men as they played at ball and other games 
upon the grass before the door, they often 
presented a little picture of cheerfulness 
and animation which made it quite a pleas- 
ure to pass that way. 

At any garrisoned point where the line 
of demarcation between one country and 
another is so very narrow as at Niagara, 
desertion from the ranks can scarcely fail 
to be of frequent occurrence ; and it may 
be reasonably supposed that, when the sol- 
diers entertain the wildest and maddest 
hopes of the fortune and independence that 
await them on the other side, the impulse 
to play traitor, which such a place sug- 
gests to dishonest minds, is not weakened. 
But it very rarely happens that the men 
who do desert are happy or contented after- 
wards ; and many instances have been 
known in which they have confessed their 
grievous disappointment, and their earnest 
desire to return to their old service if they 
could but be assured of pardon or of lenient 
treatment. Many of their comrades, not- 
withstanding, do the like from time to time ; 
and instances of loss of life in the eflbrt to 
cross the river with this object are far 
from being uncommon. Several men were 
drowned in the attempt to swim across not 
long ago ; and one who had the madness to 
trust himself upon a table as a raft, was 
swept down to the whirlpool, where his 



mangled body eddied round and round 
some days. 

I am inclined to think that the noise of 
the Falls is very much exaggerated ; and 
this will appear the more probable when 
the depth of the great basin in which the 
water is received is taken into account. At 
no time during our stay there was the wind 
at all high or boistci-ous, but we never 
heard them three miles off, even at the very 
quiet time of sunset, though we often tried. 
Queenston, at which place the steam- 
boats start for Toronto (or I should rather 
say at which place they call, for their whai-f 
is at Lewiston on the opposite shore), is 
situated in a delicious valley, through which 
the Niagara River, in color a very deep 
green, pursues its course. It is approached 
by a road that takes its winding way among 
the heights by which the town is sheltered ; 
and seen from this jioint is extremely beau- 
tiful and picturesque. On the most con- 
spicuous of these heights stood a monument 
erected by the Provincial legislature in 
memory of General Brock, who was slain 
in a battle with the American Forces, after 
having won the victory. Some vagabond, 
supposed to be a fellow of the name of 
Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in 
prison as a felon, blew up this monument 
two years ago, and it is now a melancholy 
ruin, with a long fragment of iron railing 
hanging dejectedly from its top, and wav- 
ing to and fro like a wild ivy branch or 
broken vine stem. It is of much higher 
importance than it may seem, that this 
statue should be repaired at the public cost, 
as it ought to have been long ago. Fii-stly, 
because it is beneath the dignity of Eng- 
land to allow a memorial raised in honor 
of one of her defenders to remain in this 
condition, on the very spot where he died. 
Secondly, because the sight of it in its 
present state, and the recollection of the 
unpunished outrage which brought it to 
this pass, is not very likely to soothe down 
border feelings among English subjects here, 
or compose their border quarrels and dis- 
likes. 

I was standing on the wharf at this place, 
watching the passengers embarking in a 
steamboat which preceded that whose com- 
ing we awaited, and participating in the 
anxiety with which a sergeant's wife was 
collecting her few goods together, — keep- 
ing one distracted eye hard upon the por- 
ters, who were hurrying them on board, 
and the other on a hoopless washing-tub for 
which, as being the most utterly worthless 
of all her movables, she seemed to entertain 



104 



AMERICAN NOTES 



particular affection, — wlien three or four 
soldiers with a recruit came up and went 
on board. 

The recruit was a likely young fellow 
enough, strongly built and well made, but 
by no means sober ; indeed he had all the 
air of a man who had been more or less 
drunk for some days. He carried a small 
bundle over his shoulder, slung at the end 
of a walking-stick, and had a short pipe in 
his mouth. lie was as dusty and dirty as 
recruits usually are, and his shoes betokened 
that he had travelled on foot some distance ; 
but he was in a very jocose state, and shook 
hands with this soldier, and clapped that 
one on the back, and talked and laughed 
continually, Hke a roaring idle dog as he 
was. 

The soldiers rather laughed at this blade 
than with him ; seemed to say, as they stood 
straightening their canes in their hands, 
and looking coolly at him over their glazed 
stocks, " Go on, my boy, Avhile you may ! 
you '11 know better by and by " : when sud- 
denly the novice, who had been backing 
towards the gangway in his noisy merri- 
ment, fell overboard before their eyes, and 
splashed heavily down into the river be- 
tween the vessel and the dock. 

I never saw such a good thing as the 
change that came over these soldiers in an 
instant. Almost before the man was down, 
their professional manner, their stiffness and 
constraint, were gone, and they were filled 
with the most violent energy. In less time 
than is required to tell it, they had him out 
again, feet first, with the tails of his coat 
flapping over his eyes, everything about 
him hanging the wrong way, and the water 
streaming off at every thread in his thread- 
bare dress. But the moment they set him 
upright and found that he was none the 
worse, they were soldiers again, looking 
over their glazed stocks more composedly 
than ever. 

The half-sobered recruit glanced round 
for a moment, as if his first impulse were to 
express some gratitude for his preservation ; 
but seeing them with this air of total un- 
concern, and having his wet pipe presented 
to him with an oath by the soldier who had 
been by far the most anxious of the party, 
he stuck it in his mouth, thrust his hands 
into his moist pockets, and, without even 
shaking the water off his clothes, walked on 
board whistling, — not to say as if nothing 
had happened, but as if he had meant to 
do it, and it had been a perfect success. 

Our steamboat came up directly this had 
left the wharf, and soon bore us to the 



mouth of the Niagara, where the stars and 
stripes of America flutter on one side, and 
the Union Jack of England on the other ; 
and so narrow is the space between them, 
that the sentinels in either fort can often 
hear the watchword of the other country 
given. Thence we emerged on Lake On- 
tario, an inland sea, and by half 2:iast six 
o'clock were at Toronto. 

The country round this town, being very 
flat, is bare of scenic interest ; but the town 
itself is full of life and motion, bustle, busi- 
ness, and improvement. The streets are 
well paved, and lighted with gas ; the 
houses are large and good, the shops excel- 
lent. Many of them have a display of 
goods in their windows such as may be 
seen in thriving county towns in England ; 
and there are some which would do no dis- 
credit to the metropolis itself There is a 
good stone prison here ; and there are, 
besides, a handsome church, a court-house, 
public offices, many commodious private 
residences, and a government observatory 
for noting and recording the magnetic vari- 
ations. In the College of Upper Canada, 
which is one of the public establishments of 
the city, a sound education in every depart- 
ment of polite learning can be had, at a 
very moderate expense ; the annual charge 
for the instruction of each pupil not exceed- 
ing nine pounds sterling. It has pretty 
good endowments in the way of land, and 
is a valuable and useful institution. 

The first stone of a new college had been 
laid but a few days before by the Governor- 
General. It will be a handsome, spacious 
edifice, approached by a long avenue, 
which is already planted and made avail- 
able as a public walk. The town is well 
adapted for wholesome exercise at all sea- 
sons, for the footways in the thoroughfares 
which lie beyond the princii^al street are 
planked like floors, and kept in very good 
and clean repair. 

It is a matter of deep regret that political 
differences should have run high in this 
place, and led to most discreditable and 
disgi-aceful results. It is not long since 
guns were discharged from a window in 
this town at the successful candidates in an 
election, and the coachman of one of them 
was actually shot in the body, though not 
dangerously wounded. But one man was 
killed on the same occasion ; and from the 
very window whence he received his death, 
the very flag which shielded his murderer 
(not only in the commission of his crime, 
but from its consequences) was displayed 
again on the occasion of the public cere- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



105 



mony, performed by the Governor- General, 
to which I have just adverted. Of all the 
colors in the rainbow there is but one 
which could be so employed : I need not 
say that flag was orange. 

The time of leaving Toronto for Kings- 
ton is noon. By eight o'clock next morn- 
ing the traveller is at the end of his jour- 
ney, which is performed by steamboat upon 
Lake Ontario, calling at Port Hope and 
Coburg, the latter a cheerful, thriving little 
town. Vast quantities of flour form the 
(thief item in the freight of these vessels. 
/We had no fewer than one thousand and 
eighty barrels on board between Coburg 
and Kingston. 

The latter place, which is now the seat 
of government in Canada, is a very poor 
town, rendered still poorer in the appear- 
ance of its market-place by the ravages 
of a recent fire. Indeed, it may be said 
of Kingston, that one half of it appears to 
be burnt down, and the other half not to 
be built up. The Government House is 
neither elegant nor commodious, yet it is 
almost the only house of any importance in 
the neighborhood. 

There is an admirable jail here, well and 
wisely governed, and excellently regulated 
in every respect. The men were employed 
as shoemakers, ropemakers, blacksmiths, 
tailors, carpenters, and stonecutters ; and 
in building a new prison, which was pretty 
far advanced towards completion. The fe- 
male prisoners were occupied in needle- 
work. Among them was a beautiful girl 
of twenty, who had been there nearly three 
years. She acted as bearer of secret de- 
spatches for the self-styled Patriots on Na- 
vy Island, during the Canadian Insurrec- 
tion : sometimes dressing as a girl, and 
carrying them in her stays ; sometimes at- 
tiring herself as a boy, and secreting them 
in the lining of her hat. In the latter 
character she always rode as a boy would, 
which was nothing to her, for she could 
govern any horse that any man could ride, 
and could drive four-in-hand with the best 
whip in those parts. Setting forth on one 
of her patriotic missions, she appropriated 
to herself the first hoi'se she could lay her 
hands on ; and this offence had brought 
her where I saw her. She had quite a 
lovely face, though, as the reader may sup- 
pose from this sketch of her history, there 
was a lurking devil in her bright eye, which 
looked out pretty sharply fi-om between her 
prison bars. 

There is a bomb-proof fort here of great 
strength, which occupies a bold position, and 



is capable, doubtless, of doing good service ; 
though the town is much too close upon the 
frontier to be long held, I should imagine, 
for its present purpose in troubled times. 
There is also a small navy-yard, where a 
couple of government steamboats were 
building, and getting on vigorously. 

"We left Kingston for Montreal on the 
tenth of May, at half past nine in the morn- 
ing, and proceeded in a steamboat down 
the St. Lawrence River. The beauty of 
this noble stream at almost any point, but 
especially in the commencement of this 
journey, when it winds its way among the 
thousand islands, can hardly be imagined. 
The number and constant successions of 
these islands, all green and richly wooded ; 
their fluctuating sizes, some so large that for 
half an hour together one among them will 
appear as the opposite bank of the river, 
and some so small that they are mere dim- 
ples on its broad bosom ; their infinite vari- 
ety of shapes ; and the numberless combi- 
nations of beautiful forms which the trees 
growing on them present ; — all form a pic- 
ture fraught with uncommon Interest and 
pleasure. 

In the afternoon we shot down some rap- 
Ids, where the river boiled and bubbled 
strangely, and where the force and headlong 
violence of the current were tremendous. 
At seven o'clock we reached Dickenson's 
Landing, whence travellers proceed for two 
or three hours by stage-coach, the navigation 
of the river being rendered so dangerous 
and difficult in the interval by rapids, that 
steamboats do not make the passage. The 
number and length of those portages, over 
which the roads are bad, and the travelling 
slow, render the way between the towns 
of Montreal and Kingston somewhat te- 
dious. 

Our course lay over a wide, unenclosed 
tract of country at a little distance from the 
river-side, whence the bright warning lights 
on the dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence 
shone vividly. The night was dark and 
raw, and the way dreary enough. It was 
nearly ten o'clock when we reached the 
wharf where the next steamboat lay, and 
went on board, and to bed. 

She lay there all night, and started as 
soon as it was day. The morning was ush- 
ered In by a violent thunder-storm, and was 
very wet, but gradually improved and 
brightened up. Going on deck after break- 
fast, I was amazed to see floating down 
with the stream a most gigantic raft, with 
some thirty or forty wooden houses upon it, 
and at least as many flag-masts, so that it 



106 



AMERICAN NOTES 



looked like a nautical street. I saw many 
of these rafts atterwards, but never one so 
large. All tlie tiiubor, or " lumber," as it is 
called in America, which is brought down 
the St. Lawrence, is floated down in this 
manner. When the raft reaches its place 
of destination, it is broken up, the mate- 
rials are sold, and the boatmen return for 
more. 

At eight we landed again, and travelled 
by a stage-coach for four hours through a 
pleasant and well-cultivated country, per- 
fectly French in every respect, — in the aji- 
pearance of the cottages ; the air, language, 
and dress of the peasantry ; the sign-boards 
on the shops and taverns ; and the Virgin's 
shrines and crosses by the wayside. Near- 
ly every common laborer and boy, though 
he had no shoes to his feet, wore round his 
waist a sash of some bright color, generally 
red ; and the women, who were working in 
the fields and gardens, and doing all kinds 
of husbandry, wore, one and all, great flat 
straw hats with most capacious brims. 
There were Catholic Priests and Sisters of 
Charity in the village streets, and images of 
the Saviour at the corners of cross-roads 
and in other public places. 

At noon we went on board another 
steamboat, and reached the village of La- 
chine, nine miles from Montreal, by three 
o'clock. There we left the river, and went 
on by land. 

Montreal is pleasantly situated on the 
margin of the St. Lawrence, and is backed 
by some bold heights, about which there 
are charming rides and drives. The streets 
are generally narrow and irregular, as in 
most French towns of any age ; but in the 
more modern parts of the city they ai-e 
wide and airy. They display a great vari- 
ety of very good shops ; and both in the 
town and suburbs there are many excellent 
private dwellings. The granite quays are 
remarkable for their beauty, solidity, and 
extent. 

There is a very large Catholic cathedral 
here, recently erected ; with two tall spires, 
of which one is yet unfinished. In the open 
space in front of this edifice stands a solita- 
ry, grim-looking, square brick towei', which 
has a quaint and remarkable appearance, 
and which the wiseacres of the place have 
consequently determined to pull down im- 
mediately. The Government House is very 
superior to that at Kingston, and the town 
is fuU of life and bustle. In one of the sub- 
urbs is a plank road — not footpath — five 
or six miles long, and a famous road it is 
too. All the rides in the vicinity were 



made doubly interesting by the bursting out 
of spring, which is here so rapid, that it is 
but a day's leap from barren winter to the 
blooming youth of summer. 

The steamboats to Quebec perform the 
journey in the night ; that is to say, they 
leave Montreal at six in the evening, and 
arrive in Quebec at sLx next morning. We 
made this excursion during our stay m Mon- 
treal (which exceeded a fortnight), and 
were charmed b}' its interest and beauty. 

The im])ression made upon the visitor 
by this Gibraltar of America, its giddy 
heights, its citadel suspended, as it were, in 
the air, its picturesque steep streets and 
frowning gateways, and the splendid views 
which burst upon the eye at every turn, is 
at once unique and lasting. 

It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed 
up in the mind with other places, or altered 
for a moment in the crowd of scenes a trav- 
eller can recall. Apart from the realities 
of this most picturesque city, there are as- 
sociations clustering about it wliich would 
make a desert rich in interest. The dan- 
gerous precipice, along whose rocky front 
Wolfe and his brave companions climbed to 
glory ; the Plains of Abraham, Avhere he 
received his mortal wound ; the fortress so 
chivalrously defended by Montcalm ; and 
his soldier's grave, dug for him while yet 
alive, by the bursting of a shell ; are not 
the least among them, or among the gallant 
incidents of history. That is a noble Mon- 
ument too, and worthy of two great nations, 
which perpetuates the memory of both 
brave generals, and on which their names 
are jointly written. 

The city is rich in public institutions and 
in Catholic churches and charities, but it is 
mainly in the prospect from the site of the 
Old Government House and from the Cita- 
del that its surpassing beauty lies. The ex- 
quisite expanse of country, rich in field and 
forest, mountain-height and water, which 
lies stretched out before the view, with 
miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long 
white streaks, like veins along the laud- 
scape ; the motley crowd of gables, roofs, 
and chimney-tops in the old hilly town im- 
mediately at hand ; the beautiful St. Law- 
rence sparkling and flashing in the sunllglil : 
and the tiny ships below the rock fruiu 
which you gaze, whose distant rigging looks 
like spiders' webs against the light, while 
casks and barrels on their decks dwindle 
into toys, and busy mariners become so 
many puppets ; — all this, framed by a 
sunken window in the fortress, and looked 
at from the shadowed room within, forms 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



one of the brightest and most enchanting 
jiictures that the eye can rest upon. 

In the spring of the year vast numbers 
of emigrants who have newly arrived from 
England or from Ireland j^^ss between 
Quebec and Montreal on their way to the 
backwoods and new settlements of Canada. 
If it be an entertaining lounge (as I very 
often found it) to take a morning stroll 
upon the quay at INIontreal, and see them 
grouped in hundreds on the public wharves 
about their chests and boxes, it is matter 
of deep interest to be their fellow-passen- 
ger on one of these steamboats, and, min- 
gling with the concourse, see and hear them 
unobserved. 

The vessel in which we returned from 
Quebec to Montreal was crowded with 
them, and at night they spread their beds 
between decks (those who had beds, at 
least), and slept so close and thick about 
our cabin door, that the passage to and fro 
was quite blocked up. They were nearly 
all English, — from Gloucestershire the 
gi-eater part, — and had had a long winter 
passage out; but it was wonderful to see 
how clean the children had been kept, and 
how untiring in their love and selt-denial 
all the poor parents were. 

Cant as we may, and as we shall to the 
end of all things, it is very much harder 
for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the 
rich ; and the good that is in them shines 
the brighter for it. In many a noble man- 
sion lives a man, the best of husbands and 
of fathers, whose private worth in both 
capacities is justly lauded to the skies. But 
bring him here, upon this crowded deck. 
Strip from his fair young wife her silken 
dress and jewels, unbind her braided hair, 
stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch 
her pale cheek with care and much priva- 
tion, array her faded form in coarsely 
patched attire, let there be nothing but his 
love to set her forth or deck her out, and 
you shall put it to the proof indeed. So 
change his station in the world, that he 
shall see in those young things who climb 
about his knee, not records of his wealth 
and name, but little wrestlers with him for 
his daily bread, so many poachers on his 
scanty meal, so many units to divide his 
every sum of comfort, and further to reduce 
its small amount. In lieu of the endear- 
ments of childhood in its sweetest aspect, 
heap upon him all its pains and wants, its 
sicknesses and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, 
and querulous endurance ; let its prattle be, 
not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold 
and thirst and hunger ; and if his fatherly 



affection outlive all this, and he be patient, 
watchful, tender, careful of his children's 
lives, and mindi'ul always of their joys and 
sorrows, then send him back to Parliament, 
and Pulpit, and to Quarter Sessions, and 
when he hears fine talk of the depravity of 
those who live from hand to mouth, and 
labor hard to do it, let him speak up, as 
one who knows, and tell those holders forth 
that they, by parallel with such a class, 
should be High Angels in their daily lives, 
and lay but humble siege to Heaven at 
last. 

Which of us shall say what he would be, 
if such realities, with small relief or change 
all through his days, were his ! Looking 
round upon these people, far from home, 
houseless, indigent, wandering, weary with 
travel and hard living, and seeing how pa- 
tiently they nursed and tended their young 
children ; how they consulted over their 
wants first, then half supplied their own ; 
what gentle ministers of hope and fliith the 
women were ; how the men profited by 
their example ; and how very, very seldom 
even a moment's petulance or harsh com- 
plaint broke out among them, — I felt a 
stronger love and honor of my kind come 
glowing on my heart, and wished to God 
there had been many Atheists in the better 
part of human nature there to read this 
simple lesson in the book of Life. 



We left Montreal for New York again, 
on the thirtieth of May, crossing to La 
Prairie, on the opposite shore of the St. 
Lawrence, in a steamboat ; we then took 
the railroad to St. John's, which is on the 
brink of Lake Champlain. Our last greet- 
ing in Canada was from the English officers 
in the pleasant barracks at that place (a 
class of gentlemen who had made every 
hour of our visit memorable by their hospi- 
tality and friendship), and with " Rule Bri- 
tannia " sounding in our ears, soon left it far 
behind. 

But Canada has held, and always will 
retain, a foremost place in my remembrance. 
Few Englishmen are prepared to find it 
what it is. Advancing quietly, old differ- 
ences settling down and being fast forgotten, 
pubUc feeling and private enterprise alike 
in a sound and wholesome state, nothing of 
flush or fever in its system, but health and 
vigor throbbing in its steady pulse, it is full 
of hope and promise. To me, — who had 
been accustomed to think of it as something 
left behind in the strides of advancing 
society, as something neglected and forgot- 



108 



AMERICAN NOTES 



ten, slumbering and wasting in its sleep, — 
the demand for labor and the rates of wa- 
ges, the busy quays of Montreal, the vessels 
taking in their cargoes and discharging 
theiu, the amount of shipping in the dirter- 
cnt ports, the commerce, roads, and pul)lic 
works, all made to last, the respectability 
and character of the public journals, and 
the amount of rational comfort and happi- 
ness which honest industry may earn, were 
very great surprises. The steamboats on 
the lakes, in their conveniences, cleanliness, 
and safety, in the gentlemanly character 
and bearing of their cajitains, and in the 
politeness and perfect comfort of their 
social regulations, are unsurpassed even by 
the fiimous Scotch vessels, deservedly so 
much esteemed at home. The inns are 
usually bad, because the custom of boarding 
at hotels is not so general here as in the 
States, and the British officers, who form a 
large portion of the society of every town, 
live chiefly at the regimental messes ; but in 
every other respect the traveller in Canada 
will find as good provision for his comfort 
as in any place I know. 

There is one American boat — the 
vessel which carried us on Lake Cham- 
plain, from St. John's to Whitehall — which 
I praise very highly, but no more than it 
deserves, when I say that it is superior even 
to that in which we went from Queenston 
to Toronto, or to that in which we travelled 
from the latter place to Kingston, or, I 
have no doubt I may add, to any other in 
the world. This steamboat, which is called 
the Burlington, is a perfectly exquisite 
achievement of neatness, elegance, and 
order. The decks are drawing-rooms, the 
cabins are boudoirs, choicely furnished and 
adorned with prints, pictures, and musical 
instruments ; eveiy nook and corner in the 
vessel is a perfect curiosity of graceful com- 
fort and beautiful contrivance. Captain 
Sherman, her commander, to whose ingenu- 
ity and excellent taste these results are 
solely attributable, has bravely and worthi- 
ly distinguished himself on more than one 
trying occasion ; not least among them, in 
having the moral courage to carry British 
troops, at a time (during the Canadian 
rebellion) when no other conveyance was 
open to them. He and his vessel are held 
in universal respect, both by his own coun- 
trymen and ours, and no man ever enjoyed 
the popular esteem who, in his sphere of 
action, won and wore it better than this 
gentleman. 

By means of this floating palace we were 
soon in the United States again, and called 



that evening at Burlington, a pretty town, 
where we lay an hour or so. We reached 
Whitehall, where we were to disembark at 
six next morning ; and might have done so 
earlier, but that these steamboats lie by for 
some houi-s in the night, in consequence of 
the lake becoming very narrow at that part 
of the journey, and difficult of navigation 
in the dark. Its width is so contracted at 
one point, indeed, that they are obliged to 
warp round by means of a rope. 

After breakfasting at Whitehall, we took 
the stage-coach for Albany, a large and 
busy town, where we arrived between five 
and six o'clock that afternoon, after a very 
hot day's journey, for we were now in the 
height of summer again. At seven we 
started for New York on board a great 
North River steamboat, Avhich was so 
crowded with passengers that the upper 
deck was like the box lobby of a theatre 
between the pieces, and the lower one like 
Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday 
night. But we slept soundly, notwithstand- 
ing, and soon after five o'clock next morn- 
ing reached New York. 

Tarrying here only that day and night 
to recruit after our late fatigues, we started 
off" once more upon our last journey in 
America. We had yet five days to spare 
before embarking for England, and I had a 
great desire to see " the Shaker Village," 
which is peopled by a religious sect from 
whom it takes its name. 

To this end we went up the North River 
again, as far as the toAvn of Hudson, and 
there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, 
thirty miles distant, and of course another 
and a different Lebanon from that village 
where I slept on the night of the Prairie 
trip. 

The country through which the road 
meandered was rich and beautiful, the 
weather very fine, and for many miles the 
Kaatskill Mountains, where Rip Van Win- 
kle and the ghastly Dutchmen played at 
ninepins one memorable gusty afternoon, 
towered in the blue distance, like stately 
clouds. At one point, as we ascended a 
steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad, 
yet constructing, took its coui-se, we came 
upon an L'ish colony. With means at hand 
of building decent cabins, it was wonderful 
to see how clumsy, rough, and wretched its 
hovels were. The best were poor protec- 
tion from the weather ; the worst let in the 
wind and rain through wide breaches in the 
roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of 
mud ; some had neither door nor window ; 
some had nearly fallen down, and were im- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



109 



perfectly propped up by stakes and poles ; 
all were ruinous and filthy. Hideously 
ugly old women and very buxom young 
ones, 2:>igs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, 
kettles, dunghills, vile refuse, rank straw, 
and standing water, all wallowing together 
in an inseparable heap, composed the furni- 
ture of every dark and dirty hut. 

Between nine and ten o'clock at night 
we arrived at Lebanon, which is renowned 
for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, 
well adapted, I have no doubt, to the gre- 
garious taste of those seekers after health 
or pleasure who repair here, but inexpressi- 
bly comfortless to me. We were shown 
into an immense apartment, lighted by two 
dim candles, called the drawing-room, from 
which there was a descent by a flight of 
steps to another vast desert called the din- 
ing-room. Our bedchambei-s were among 
certain long rows of little whitewashed 
cells, which opened from either side of a 
dreary passage, and were so like rooms in a 
prison that I half expected to be locked up 
when I went to bed, and listened involun- 
tarily for the turning of the key on the 
outside. There need be baths somewhere 
in the neighborhood, for the other washing 
arrangements were on as limited a scale as 
I ever saw, even in America ; indeed, these 
bedrooms were so very bare of even such 
common luxuries as chairs, that I should 
say they were not provided with enough of 
anything, but that I bethink myself of our 
having been most bountifully bitten all 
night. 

The house is very pleasantly situated, 
however, and we had a good breakfast. 
That done, we went to visit our place of 
destination, which was some two miles off, 
and the way to which was soon indicated 
by a finger-post, whereon was painted, " To 
the Shaker Village." 

As we rode along, we passed a party of 
Shakers, who were at work upon the road, 
who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed 
hats, and were in all visible respects such 
very wooden men, that I felt about as much 
sympathy for them, and as much interest 
in them, as if they had been so many fig- 
ure-heads of ships. Presently we came to 
the beginning of the village, and alighting 
at the door of a house where the Shaker 
manufactures are sold, and which is the 
head-quarters of the elders, requested per- 
mission to see the Shaker worship. 

Pending the conveyance of tlals request 
to some person in authority, we walked into 
a grim room, where several grim hats were 
hanging on grim pegs, and the time was 



grimly told by a grim clock, which uttered 
every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it 
broke the grim silence reluctantly, and un- 
der protest. Ranged against the wall were 
six or eight stiff high-backed chairs, and 
they partook so strongly of the general 
gi'imness, that one would much rather have 
sat on the floor than incurred the smallest 
obligation to any of them. 

Presently there stalked into this apart- 
ment a gi'Im old Shaker, with eyes as hard 
and dull and cold as the great round metal 
buttons on his coat and waistcoat, — a sort 
of calm goblin. Being informed of our de- 
sire, he produced a newspaper wherein the 
body of elders whereof he was a member 
had advertised but a few days before, that, 
in consequence of certain unseemly inter- 
ruptions which their worship had received 
fi'om strangers, their chapel was closed to 
the public for the space of one year. 

As nothing was to be urged in opposition 
to this reasonable arrangement, we request- 
ed leave to make some trifling purchases of 
Shaker goods, which was grimly conceded. 
"We accordingly repaired to a store in the 
same house and on the opposite side of the 
passage, where the stock was presided over 
by something alive in a russet case, which 
the elder said was a woman, and which I 
suppose luas a woman, though I should not 
have suspected it. 

On the opposite side of the road was 
their place of worship, — a cool, clean edi- 
fice of wood, with large windows and green 
blinds, like a spacious summer-house. As 
there was no getting into this place, and 
nothing was to be done but walk up and 
down, and look at it and the other buildings 
in the village (which were chiefly of wood 
painted a dark red, like English barns, and 
composed of many stories like English facto- 
ries), I have nothing to communicate to the 
reader beyond the scanty results I gleaned 
the while our purchases were making. 

These people are called Shakers fi-om 
their peculiar form of adoration, which con- 
sists of a dance performed by the men and 
women of all ages, who arrange themselves 
for that purpose in opposite parties ; the 
men first divesting themselves of their hats 
and coats, -which they gravely hang against 
the wall before they begin ; and tying a 
ribbon round their shirt-sleeves, as though 
they were going to be bled. They accom- 
pany themselves with a droning, humming 
noise, and dance until they are quite ex- 
hausted, alternately advancing and retiring 
in a preposterous sort of trot. The effect is 
said to be unspeakably absm-d ; and if I 



no 



AMERICAN NOTES 



II 



may judge from a print of this ceremony 
which I have in my possession, and which 
I am informed by those who have visited 
the chapel is perfectly accurate, it must be 
infinitely grotesque. 

They are governed by a woman, and her 
rule is understood to be absolute, though 
she has the assistance of a council of elders. 
She lives, it is said, in strict seclusion in 
certain rooms above the chapel, and is 
never shown to profane eyes. If she at all 
resemble the lady who presided over the 
store, it is a great charity to keep her as 
close as possible, and I cannot too strongly 
express my perfect concurrence in this be- 
nevolent proceeding. 

All the possessions and revenues of the 
settlement are thrown into a common stock, 
which is managed by the elders. As they 
have made converts among people who 
were well to do in the woi-ld, and are frugal 
and thrifty, it is understood that this fund 
prospers, the more especially as they have 
made large purchases of land. Nor is this 
at Lebanon the only Shaker settlement ; 
there are, I think, at least three others. 

They are good farmers, and all their 
produce is eagerly purchased and highly 
esteemed. " Shaker seeds," " Shaker herbs," 
and " Shaker distilled waters " are com- 
monly announced for sale in the shops of 
towns and cities. They are good breeders 
of cattle, and are kind and merciful to the 
brute creation. Consequently Shaker beasts 
seldom foil to find a ready market. 

They eat and drink together, after the 
Spartan model, at a great public table. 
There is no union of the sexes, and every 
Shaker, male and female, is devoted to a life 
of celibacy. Rumor has been busy upon 
this theme, but here again I must refer to 
the lady of the store, and say that if many 
of the sister Shakers resemble her, I treat 
all such slander as bearing on its face the 
strongest marks of wild improbability. But 
that they take as proselytes persons so 
young that they cannot know their own 
minds, and cannot possess much strength 
of resolution in this or any other respect, 
I can assert from my own observation of 
the extreme juvenility of certain youthful 
Shakers whom I saw at work among the 
party on the road. 

They are said to be good drivers of bar- 
gains, but to be honest and just in their 
transactions, and even in horse-dealing to 
resist those thievish tendencies which would 
seem, for some undiscovered reason, to be 
almost inseparable from that branch of 
traffic. In all matters they hold their own 



course quietly, live in their gloomy, silent 
commonwealth, and show little desire to 
interfere with other people. 

This is well enough, but nevertheless I 
cannot, I confess, incline towards the Sha- 
kers, view them with much fovor, or extend 
towards them any very lenient construction. 
I so abhor and ti-ora my soul detest that bad 
spirit, no matter by what class or sect it 
may be entertained, which would strip life 
of its healthful graces, rob youth of its in- 
nocent pleasures, pluck from maturity and 
age their pleasant ornaments, and make 
existence but a nan-ow path towards the 
grave ; that odious spirit which, if it could 
have had full scope and sway upon the 
earth, must have blasted and made barren 
the imaginations of the greatest men, and 
left them, in their power of raising up en- 
during images before their fellow-creatures 
yet unborn, no better than the beasts ; that 
in these very broad-brimmed hats and very 
sombre coats — in stiff-necked solemn-vis- 
aged piety, in short, no matter what its 
garb, whether it have cropped hair as in a 
Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo 
temple — I recognize the worst among the 
enemies of Heaven and Earth, who turn 
the water at the marriage feasts of this poor 
world, not into wine, but gall. And if there 
must be people vowed to crush the harm- 
less fancies and the love of innocent delights 
and gayeties, which are a part of human 
nature, -7- as much a part of it as any other 
love or hope that is our common portion, — 
let them, for me, stand openly revealed 
among the ribald and licentious : the very 
idiots know that they are not on the Im- 
mortal road, and will despise them, and 
avoid them readily. 

Leaving the Shaker Village with a hearty 
dislike of the old Shakers, and a hearty pity 
for the young ones, tempered by the strong 
probability of their running away as they 
grow older and wiser, which they not un- 
commonly do, we returned to Lebanon, 
and so to Hudson, by the way we had come 
upon the previous day. There we took 
steamboat down the North River towards 
New York, but stopped, some four hours' 
journey short of it, at West Point, where 
we remained that night, and all next day, 
and next night too. 

In this beautiful place, the fairest among 
the fair and lovely Highlands of the North 
River, shut in by deep green heights and 
ruined forts, and looking down upon the 
distant town of Newburg, along a glitter- 
ing path of sunlit water, with here and there 
a skiS", whose white sail often bends on 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



Ill 



some new tack as sudden flaws of wind 
come down upon her from the gullies in the 
hills, hemmed in, besides, all round with 
memories of Washington and events of the 
Revolutionary war, is the Military School 
of America. 

It could not stand on more appropriate 
ground, and any ground more beautiful 
can hardly be. The course of education 
is severe, but well devised and manly. 
Through June, July, and August, the 
young men encamp upon the spacious plain 
whereon the college stands; and all the 
year their military exercises are performed 
there daily. The term of study at this in- 
stitution which the state requires from all 
cadets is four years ; but whether it be 
from the rigid nature of the discipline, or 
the national impatience of restraint, or both 
causes combined, not more than half the 
number who begin their studies here ever 
remain to finish them. 

The number of cadets being about equal 
to that of the members of Congress, one is 
sent here from every Congressional district, 
its member influencing the selection. Com- 
missions in the service are distributed on 
the same principle. The dwellings of the 
various Professors are beautifully situated ; 
and there is a most excellent hotel for stran- 
gers, though it has the two drawbacks of 
being a total-abstinence house (wines and 
spirits being forbidden to the students), and 
of serving the public meals at rather un- 
comfortable hours, to wit, breakfast at seven, 
dinner at one, and supper at sunset. 

The beauty and freshness of this calm re- 
treat, in the very dawn and greenness of 
summer, — it was then the beginning of 
June, — were exquisite indeed. Leaving 
it upon the sixth, and returning to New 
York to embark for England on the suc- 
ceeding day, I was glad to think that 
among the last memorable beauties which 
had glided past us, and softened in the 
bright perspective, were those whose pic- 
tures, traced by no common hand, are 
fresh in most men's minds, not easily to 
grow old, or fade beneath the dust of Time, 
— The Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hol- 
low, and the Tappaan Zee. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE PASSAGE HOME. 

I NEVER had so much interest before, 
and very likely I shall never have so much 



interest again, in the state of the wind, as 
on the long-looked-for morning of Tuesday 
the Seventh of June. Some nautical au- 
thority had told me a day or two previous, 
" Anything with west in it will do " ; so 
when I darted out of bed at daylight, and, 
throwing up the window, Avas saluted by a 
lively breeze from the northwest which had 
sprung up in the night, it came upon me 
so freshly, rustling with so many happy as- 
sociations, that I conceived upon the spot a 
special regard for all airs blowing from that 
quarter of the compass, which I shall cher- 
ish, I dare say, until my own wind has 
breathed its last frail j^uff, and withdrawn 
itself forever from the mortal calendar. 

The pilot had not been slow to take ad- 
vantage of this favorable weather, and the 
ship which yesterday had been in such a 
crowded dock that she might have retired 
from trade for good and all, for any chance 
she seemed to have of going to sea, was 
now full sixteen miles away. A gallant 
sight she was, when we, fast gaining on her 
in a steamboat, saw her in the distance rid- 
ing at anchor, her tall masts pointing up in 
graceful lines against the sky, and every 
rope and spar expressed in delicate and 
thread-like outline ; gallant, too, when we, 
being all aboard, the anchor came up to the 
sturdy chorus, " Cheerily men, O cheeri- 
ly ! " and she followed proudly in the tow- 
ing steamboat's wake ; but bravest and 
most gallant of all, when, the tow-rojie be- 
ing cast adrift, the canvas fluttered from 
her masts, and, spreading her white wings, 
she soared away upon her free and solitary 
course. 

In the after-cabin we were only fifteen 
passengers in all, and the greater part were 
from Canada, where some of us had known 
each other. The night was rough and 
squally, so were the next two days, but 
they flew by quickly, and we were soon as 
cheerful and as snug a party, with an hon- 
est, manly-hearted captain at our head, as 
ever came to the resolution of being mutu- 
ally agreeable, on land or water. 

We breakfasted at eight, lunched at 
twelve, dined at three, and took our tea 
at half past seven. We had abundance of 
amusements, and dinner was not the least 
among them : firstly, for its own sake ; 
secondly, because of its extraordinary 
length, its duration, inclusive of all the long 
pauses between the courses, being seldom 
less than two hours and a half, which was 
a subject of never-fxiling entertainment. 
By way of beguiling the tedlousness of these 
banquets, a select association was formed at 



112 



AMERICAN NOTES 



the lower end of the table, below the mast, 
to whose distinguished president modesty 
forbids nie to make any further allusion, 
which, being a very hilarious and jovial in- 
stitution, was (prejudice aj)art) in high fli- 
vor with the rest of the community, and 
particularly with a black steward, who lived 
for three weeks in a broail grin at the mar- 
vellous humor of these incorporated wor- 
thies. 

Then we had chess for those Avho played 
it, whist, cribbage, books, backgammon, and 
shovel-board. In all weathers, fair or foul, 
calm or windy, we were every one on deck, 
walking up and down in j)airs, lying in the 
boats, leaning over the side, or chatting in 
a lazy group together. We had no lack of 
music, for one played the accordion, another 
the violin, and another (who usually be- 
gan at six o'clock, A. m.) the key-bugle, the 
combined effect of which instruments, when 
they all played different tunes in different 
parts of the ship, at the same time, and with- 
in hearing of each other, as they sometimes 
did (everybody being intensely satisfied with 
his own performance), was sublimely hideous. 

When all these means of entertainment 
failed, a sail would heave in sight, looming 
perhaps, the very spirit of a ship, in the 
misty distance, or passing us so close that 
through our glasses we could see the people 
on her decks, and easily make out her name 
and Avhither she was bound. For hours to- 
gether we could watch the dolphins and 
porpoises as they rolled and leaped and 
Vlived around the vessel; or those small 
preatures ever on the wing, the Mother 
yarey's chickens, wlilch had borne us com- 
jany from New York bay, and for a whole 
fortnight fluttered about the vessel's stern, 
i'or some days we had a dead calm, or very 
jht winds, during which the crew amused 
themselves with fishing, and hooked an un- 
lucky dolphin, who expired, in all his rain- 
bow colors, on the deck, an event of such 
importance in our barren calendar, that 
afterwards we dated from the dolphin, and 
made the day on which he died an era. 

Besides all this, when we were five or six 
days out, there began to be much talk of 
icebergs, of which wandering islands an un- 
usual number had been seen by the vessels 
that had come into New York a day or two 
before we left that port, and of whose dan- 
gerous neighborhood we were warned by 
the sudden coldness of the weather, and the 
sinking of the mercury in the barometer. 
While these tokens lasted, a double lookout 
was kept, and many dismal tales were whis- 
pered, after dark, of ships that had struck 



upon the ice and gone down in the night; 
but the wind obliging us to hold a south- 
ward coui-se, we saw none of them, and 
the weather soon grew bright and warm 
again. 

The observation every day at noon, and 
the subsequent working of the vessel's course, 
was, as may be supposed, a feature in our 
lives of paramount importance ; nor were 
there wanting (as there never are) sagacious 
doubters of the captain's calculations, who, 
so soon as his back was turned, would, in 
the absence of compasses, measure the chart 
with bits of string, and ends of pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs, and points of snuffers, and clearly 
prove him to be wrong by an odd thousand 
miles or so. It was very edifying to see 
these unbelievers shake their heads and 
frown, and hear them hold fortli strongly 
upon navigation ; not that they knew any- 
thing about it, but that they always mis- 
trusted the captain in calm weather or when 
the wind was adverse. Indeed, the mercury 
itself is not so variable as this class of pas- 
sengers, whom you will see, when the ship 
is going nobly through the water, quite pale 
with admiration, swearing that the captain 
beats all captains ever known, and even 
hinting at subscriptions for a piece of plate ; 
and who, next morning, when the breeze 
has lulled, and all the sails hang useless in 
the idle air, shake their despondent heads 
again, and say with screwed-ujj lips, they 
hope that the captain is a sailor, — but they 
shrewdly doubt him. 

It even became an occupation in the calm 
to wonder when the wind ivould spring up 
in the flxvorable quarter, where, it was 
clearly shown by all tlie rules and prece- 
dents, it ought to have sprung up long ago. 
The first mate, who whistled for it zealously, 
was much respected for his perseverance, 
and was regarded even by the unbelievers 
as a first-rate sailor. ]\Iany gloomy looks 
would be cast upward through the cabin sky- 
lights at the flajiplng sails while dinner was 
in progress ; and some, growing bold in rue- 
fulness, predicted that we should land about 
the middle of July. There are always on 
board ship a Sanguine One and a Despond- 
ent One. The latter character carried it 
hollow at this period of the voyage, and 
triumphed over the Sanguine One at every 
meal, by inquiring where he supposed the 
Great Western (which left New York a 
week after us) was now; and where he 
supposed the " Cunard " steam-packet was 
now ; and what he thouglit of sailing vessels 
as compared with steam-ships noii} ; and so 
beset his hfe with pestilent attacks of that 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



113 



kind, that he too was obliged to aiFect de- 
spondency, for very peace and quietude. 

These were additions to the hst of en- 
tertaining incidents, but there was still an- 
other source of interest. We carried in 
the steerage nearly a hundred passengers, 
— a little world of poverty ; and as we 
came to know individuals among them by 
sight, from looking down upon the deck 
where they took the air in the daytime, 
and cooked their food, and very often ate 
it too, we became curious to know their 
histories, and with what expectations they 
had gone out to America, and on what er- 
rands they were going home, and what their 
circumstances were. The information we 
got on these heads from the carpenter, who 
had charge of these people, was often of 
the strangest kind. Some of them had 
been in America but three days, some but 
three months, and some had gone out in 
the last voyage of that very ship in which 
they were now returning home. Others 
had sold their clothes to raise the passage- 
money, and had hardly rags to cover them ; 
others had no food, and lived upon the 
charity of the rest ; and one man, it was 
discovered nearly at the end of the voyage, 
not before, — for he kept his secret close, 
and did not court compassion, — had had 
no sustenance whatever but the bones and 
scraps of fat he took from the plates used 
in the after-cabin dinner, when they were 
put out to be washed. 

The whole system of shipping and con- 
veying these unfortunate persons is one 
that stands in need of thorough revision. 
If any class deserve to be protected and 
assisted by the government, it is that class 
who are banished from their native land in 
search of the bare means of subsistence. 
All that could be done for these poor peo- 
ple by the great compassion and humanity 
of the captain and officers was done, but 
they require much more. The law is bound, 
at least upon the English side, to see that 
too many of them are not put on board 
one ship, and that their accommodations 
are decent, not demoralizing and proffigate. 
It is bound, too, in common humanity, to 
declare that no man shall be taken on board 
without his stock of provisions being previ- 
ously inspected by some proper officer, and 
pronounced moderately sufficient for his 
support upon the voyage. It is bound to 
provide, or to require that there be pro- 
vided, a medical attendant ; whereas in 
these ships there are none, though sickness 
of adults, and deaths of children, on the 
passage are matters of the very commonest 



occurrence. Above all, it is the duty of 
any government, be it monarchy or repub- 
lic, to Interj^ose and put an end to that 
system by which a firm of traders in emi- 
grants purchase of the owners the whole 
'tween decks of a ship, and send on board 
as many wretched people as they can lay 
hold of, on any terms they can get, without 
the smallest reference to the conveniences 
of the steerage, the number of berths, the 
slightest separation of the sexes, or anything 
but their own immediate profit. Nor is 
even this the worst of the vicious system ; 
for certain crimping agents of these houses, 
who have a percentage on all the passen- 
gers they inveigle, are constantly travelling 
about those districts where poverty and 
discontent are rife, and tempting the cred- 
ulous into more misery, by holding out 
monstrous Inducements to emigration which 
can never be realized. 

The history of every family we had on 
board was pretty much the same. After 
hoarding up, and borrowing, and begging, 
and selling everything to pay the passage, 
they had gone out to New York, expecting 
to find Its streets paved with gold, and had 
found them paved with ver}" hard and very 
real stones. Enterprise was dull, laborers 
were not wanted, jobs of work were to be 
got, but the payment was not. They were 
coming back even poorer than they went. 
One of them was carrying an open letter 
from a young English artisan, who • had 
been In New York a fortnight, to a friend 
near Manchester, whom he strongly urged 
to follow him. One of the officers brought 
it to me as a curiosity. " This is the coun- 
try, Jem," said the writer. " I like Amer- 
ica. There Is no despotism here ; that 's 
the great thing. Employment of all sorts 
is going a begging, and wages are capital. 
You have only to choose a trade, Jem, and 
be It. I have n't made choice of one yet, 
but I shall soon. At present I have n't quite 
made up my mind wltether to he a carpenter 
— or a tailor." 

There was yet another kind of passenger, 
and but one more, who, in the calm and the 
light winds, was a constant theme of conver- 
sation and observation among us. This was 
an English sailor, a smart, thorough-built, 
English man-of-war's-man from his hat to 
his shoes, who was serving In the American 
navy, and, having got leave of absence, was 
on his way home to see his friends. When 
he presented himself to take and pay for his 
passage, it had been suggested to him that, 
being an able seaman, he might as well work 
it and save the money ; but this piece of ad- 



AMERICAN NOTES 



vice he very indignantly rejected, saying, 
" lie 'd be damned but for once he 'd go 
aboard ship as a gentleman." Accordingly, 
they took his money, but he no sooner came 
aboai-d than he stowed his kit in the fore- 
castle, arranged to mess with the crew, and, 
the very first time the hands were turned 
up, went aloft like a cat, before anybody. 
And all through the passage there he was, 
first at the braces, outermost on the yards, 
])erpetually lending a hand everywhere, 
but always with a sober dignity in his man- 
ner, and a sober grin on his face, which plain- 
ly said, " I do it as a gentleman. For my 
own pleasure, mind you ! " 

At length and at last, the promised wind 
came up in right good earnest, and 
away we went before it, with every stitch 
of canvas set, slashing through the water 
nobly. There was a grandeur in the mo- 
tion of the splendid ship, as, overshadowed 
by her mass of sails, she rode at a furious 
pace upon the waves, which filled one with 
au indescribable sense of pride and exulta- 
tion. As she plunged into a foaming valley, 
how I loved to see the green waves, bor- 
dered deep with white, come rushing on 
astern, to buoy her upward at their pleasure, 
and curl about her as she stooped again, but 
always own her for their haughty mistress 
still ! On, on we flew, with changing lights 
upon the water, being now in the blessed 
region of fleecy skies ; a bright sun lighting 
us by day, and a bright moon by night ; 
the vane pointing directly homeward, alike 
the truthful index to the favoring wind and 
to our cheerful hearts ; until at sunrise, one 
fair Monday morning, — the twenty-seventh 
of June, I shall not easily forget the day, — 
there lay before us old Cape Clear, God 
bless it, showing, in the mist of early morn- 
ing, like a cloud ; the brightest and most 
■welcome cloud to us that ever hid the face 
of Heaven's fallen sister, — Home. 

Dim speck .as it was in the wide prospect, 
it made the sunrise a more cheerful sight, 
and gave to it that sort of human interest 
which it seems to want at sea. There, as 
elsewhere, the return of day is inseparable 
from some sense of renewed hope and glad- 
ness ; but the light shining on the dreary 
waste of water, and showing it in all its vast 
extent of loneliness, presents a solemn spec- 
tacle which even night, veiling it in dark- 
ness and imcertaiuty, does not surpass. 
The rising of the moon is more in keeping 
with the sohtary ocean, and has an air of 
melancholy grandeur, which in its soft and 
gentle influence seems to comfort while it 
saddens. I recollect when I was a very 



young child having a fancy that the reflec- 
tion of the moon in water was a path to 
Heaven, trodden by the spirits of good peo- 
ple on their way to God ; and this old feel- 
ing often came over me again, when I 
watched it on a tranquil night at sea. 

The wind was very light on this same 
Monday morning, but it was still in the right 
quarter, and so, by slow degrees, we left 
Cape Clear behind, and sailed along WMthin 
sight of the coast of Ireland. And how mer- 
ry we all were, and how loyal to the George 
Washington, and how full of mutual con- 
gratulations, and how venturesome in pre- 
dicting the exact hour at which we should 
arrive at Liverpool, may be easily imagined 
and readily understood. Also, how heartily 
we drank the captain's health that day at 
dinner ; and how restless we became about 
packing up ; and how two or three of the 
most sanguine spirits rejected the idea of 
going to bed at all that night as something 
it was not worth while to do, so near the 
shore, but Avent nevertheless, and slept 
soundly ; and how to be so near our jour- 
ney's end was like a pleasant dream, from 
which one feared to wake. 

The Iriendly breeze freshened again next 
day, and on we went once more before it 
gallantly ; descrying now and then an Eng- 
lish ship going homeward under shortened 
sail, while we with every inch of canvas 
crowded on, dashed gayly past, and left her 
far behind. Towards evening the weather 
turned hazy, with a drizzling rain ; and 
soon became so thick, that we sailed, as it 
were, in a cloud. Still we swept onward 
like a phantom ship, and many an eager 
eye glanced \x\> to where the lookout on the 
mast kept watch for Holyhead. 

At length his long-expected cry was 
heard, and at the same moment there shone 
out from the haze and mist ahead a gleam- 
ing light, which presently was gone, and 
soon returned, and soon was gone again. 
Whenever it came back, the eyes of all on 
board brightened and sparkled like itself; 
and there we all stood, watching this revolv- 
ing light upon the rock at Holyhead, and 
praising it for its brightness and its friendly 
warning, and lauding it, in short, above all 
other signal lights that ever were displayed, 
until it once more glimmered faintly in the 
distance, far behind us. 

Then it was time to fire a gun for a 
pilot ; and almost before its smoke had 
cleared away, a little boat with a light at 
her mast-head came bearing down upon us, 
through the darkness, swiftly. And pres- 
ently, our sails being backed, she ran along- 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



115 



side ; and the hoarse pilot, wrapped and 
muffled in pea coats and shawls to the very 
bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, 
stood bodily among us on the deck. And I 
think if that pilot had wanted to borrow 
fifty pounds for an indefinite period on no 
security, we should have engaged to lend it 
him, among us, before his boat had dropped 
astern, or (which is the same thing) before 
every scrap of news in the paper he 
brought with him had become the common 
property of all on board. 

We turned in pretty late that night, and 
turned out pretty early next morning. 
By six o'clock we clustei-ed on the deck, 
prepared to go ashore ; and looked upon the 
spires and roofs and smoke of Liverpool. 
By eight we all sat down in one of its ho- 
tels to eat and drink together for the last 
time. And by nine we had shaken hands 
all round, and broken up our social compa- 
ny forever. 

The country by -the railroad seemed, as 
we rattled through it, like a luxuriant gar- 
den. The beauty of the fields, (so small 
they looked !) the hedge-rows, and the 
trees ; the pretty cottages, the beds of 
flowers, the old churcliyards, the antique 
houses, and every well-known object; the 
extpiisite delights of that one journey, 
crowding, in the short compass of a sum- 
mer's day, the joy of many years, and 
winding up with Home and all that makes 
it dear, — no tongue can tell or pen of mine 
describe. 



CHAPTER XVn. 



The upholders of slavery in America — 
of the atrocities of which system I shall 
not write one word for which I have not 
ample proof and warrant — may be divid- 
ed into three great classes. 

The first are those more moderate and 
rational owners of human cattle, who have 
come into the possession of them as so 
many coins in their trading capital, but 
who admit the frightful nature of the Insti- 
tution in the abstract, and perceive the 
dangers to society with which it is fraught, 
— dangers which, however distant they may 
be, or howsoever tardy in their coming on, 
are as certain to fall upon its guilty head as 
is the Day of Judgment. 

The second consists of all those owners, 
breeders, users, buyers, and sellers of slaves, 
who will, until the bloody chapter has a 



bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell 
them at all hazards ; who doggedly deny 
the horrors of the system, in the teeth of 
such a mass of evidence as never was 
brought to bear on any other subject, and 
to which the experience of every day con- 
tributes its immense amount ; who would, 
at this or any other moment, gladly involve 
America in a war, civil or foreign, provided 
that it had for its sole end and object the 
assertion of their right to perpetuate slav- 
ery, and to whip and work and torture 
slaves, unquestioned by any human author- 
ity, and unassailed by any human power ; 
who, when they speak of Freedom, mean 
the Freedom to oppress their kind, and to 
be savage, merciless, and cruel ; and of 
whom every man on his own ground in re- 
publican America is a more exacting, and 
a sterner, and a less i-esponsible despot than 
the Caliph Haroun Alraschid in his angry 
robe of scarlet. 

The third, and not the least numerous or 
influential, is composed of all that delicate 
gentility which cannot bear a superior, and 
cannot brook an equal ; of that class whose 
Republicanism means, " I will not tolerate 
a man above me, and of those below, none 
must approach too near " ; whose pride, in a 
land where voluntary servitude is shunned 
as a disgrace, must be ministered to by 
slaves ; and whose inalienable rights can 
only have their growth in negro wrongs. 

It has been sometimes urged, that, in the 
unavailing efforts which have been made to 
advance the cause of Human Freedom in 
the republic of America, (strange cause for 
history to treat of !) sufficient regard has not 
been had to the existence of the first class 
of persons ; and it has been contended that 
they are hardly used, in being confounded 
with the second. This is, no doubt, the 
case ; noble instances of pecuniary and per- 
sonal sacrifice have already had their growth 
among them ; and it is much to be regretted 
that the gulf between them and the advo- 
cates of emancipation should have been 
widened and deei^ened by any means ; the 
rather, as there are beyond dispute, among 
these slave-owners, many kind masters who 
are tender in the exercise of their unnatural 
power. Still it is to be feared that this in- 
justice is inseparable from the state of things 
with which humanity and truth are called 
upon to deal. Slavery is not a whit the 
more endurable because some hearts are to 
be found which can partially resist its hard- 
ening influences ; nor can the indignant tide 
of honest wx-ath stand still, because in its 
onward course it overwhelms a few who are 



IIG 



AMERICAN NOTES 



comparatively innocent, among a host of 
guilty. 

The ground most commonly taken by 
these better men among the advocates of 
slavery is this : " It is a bad system ; and for 
myself I would willingly get rid of it if I 
could, — most willingly. But it is not so 
bad as j-ou in England take it to be. You 
are deceived by the representations of the 
emancipationists. The greater part of my 
slaves are much attached to mc. You will 
say that I do not allow them to be severely 
treated ; but I will put it to you whether 
you believe that it can be a general practice 
to treat them inhumanly, when it would im- 
pair their value, and would be obviously 
against the interests of their masters." 

Is it the interest of any man to steal, 
to game, to waste his health and mental 
faculties by drunkenness, to lie, forswear 
himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate re- 
venge, or do murder ? No. All these are 
roads to ruin. And why, then, do men 
tread them ? Because such inclinations are 
among the vicious qualities of mankind. 
Blot out, ye friends of slavery, from the cat- 
alogue of human passions, brutal lust, cruel- 
ty, and the abuse of irresponsible power (of 
all earthly temptations the most difficult to 
be resisted), and when ye have done so, 
and not before, we will inquire whether it 
be the interest of a master to lash and 
maim the slaves over whose lives and limbs 
he has an absolute control ! 

But again, this class, together with that last 
one I have named, the miserable aristocra- 
cy spawned of a false republic, lift up their 
voices and exclaim, " Public opinion is all- 
sufficient to prevent such cruelty as you de- 
nounce." Public opinion ! . Why, public 
opinion in the Slave States is slavery, is it 
not ? Public opinion in the Slave States 
has dehvered the slaves over to the gentle 
mercies of their masters. Public opinion 
has made the laws, and denied the slaves 
legislative protection. Public opinion has 
knotted the lash, heated the branding-iron, 
loaded the rifle, and shielded the murderer. 
Public opinion threatens the abolitionist 
with death if he venture to the South ; and 
drags him with a rope about his middle, in 
broad unblushing noon, through the first 
city in the East. Puljlic opinion has, with- 
in a few years, burned a slave alive at a 
slow fire in the city of St. Louis ; and pub- 
lic opinion has to this day maintained upon 
the bench that estimable Judge who charged 
the Jury impanelled there to try his murder- 
ers, that their most horrid deed was an act 
of public opinion, and, being so, must not be 



punished by the laws the public sentiment 
had made. Public opinion hailed this doc- 
trine with a howl of wild applause, and set 
the prisoners free, to walk the city, men of 
mark and influence and station as they had 
been before. 

Public opinion ! what class of men have 
an immense preponderance over the rest of 
the community, in their power of represent- 
ing public opinion in the legislature ? The 
slave-owners. They send from their twelve 
States one hundred members, while the 
fourteen Free States, with a free population 
nearly double, return but a hundred and 
forty-two. Before whom do the presiden- 
tial candidates bow down the most humbly, 
on whom do they fawn the most fondly, 
and for whose tastes do they cater the most 
assiduously, in their servile protestations ? 
The slave-owners always. 

Public opinion ! hear the public opinion 
of the free South, as expressed by its own 
members in the House of Representatives at 
Washington. " I have a great respect for 
the chair," quoth North Carolina, — "I 
have a great respect for the chair as an offi- 
cer of the house, and a great respect for 
him personally ; nothing but that respect 
prevents me from rushing to the table and 
tearing that petition which has just been 
presented for the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia to pieces." — "I warn 
the abolitionists," says South Carolina, " ig- 
norant, infuriated barbarians as they are, 
that, if chance shall throw any of them into 
our hands, he may expect a felon's death." 
— '^ Let an abolitionist come within the 
borders of South Carolina," cries a third, 
mild Carolina's colleague, " and if we can 
catch him, we will try him, and notwith- 
standing the interference of all the govern- 
ments on earth, including the Federal gov- 
ernment, we will H.\NG him." 

Public opinion has made this law. It 
has declared that in Washington, in that 
city which takes its name fi-om the father of 
American liberty, any justice of the peace 
may bind with fetters any negro passing 
down the street, and thrust him into jail ; 
no offence on the black man's part is neces- 
sary. The justice says, " I choose to think 
this man a runaway"; and locks him up. 
Public opinion empowers the man of law 
when this is done to advertise the negro in the 
newspapers, warning his owner to come and 
claim him, or he will be sold to pay the jail 
fees. But supposing he is a free black, and 
has no owner, it may naturally be presumed 
that he is set at liberty. No ; he is sold 
TO RECOMPENSE iiis JAILER. This has 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



been done again, and again, and again. 
He has no means of proving his freedom ; 
has no adviser, messenger, or assistance of 
any sort or kind ; no investigation into his 
case is mjide, or inquiry instituted. He, a 
free man, who may have served for years, 
and bought his liberty, is thrown into jail 
on no i^rocess, for no crime, and on no pre- 
tence of crime, and is sold to pay the jail 
fees. This seems incredible, even of Amer- 
ica, but it is the law. 

Public opinion is deferred to, in such 
cases as the following ; which is headed in 
the newspapers 

^^Interesting Law-Case. 
" An interesting case is now on trial in 
the Supreme Court, arising out of the fol- 
lowing facts. A gentleman residing in 
Maryland had allowed an aged pair of his 
slaves substantial though not legal freedom 
for several years. While thus living, a 
daughter was born to them, who grew up 
in the same liberty, until she married a free 
negro, and went with him to reside in 
Pennsylvania. They had several children, 
and lived unmolested until the original 
owner died, when his heir attempted to re- 
gain them ; but the magistrate before whom 
they were brought decided that he had no 
jurisdiction in the case. The owner seized 
the woman and her children in the night, and 
carried them to Maryland." 

" Cash for negroes," " Cash for negroes," 
" Cash for negroes," is the heading of adver- 
tisements in great cajiitals down the long 
columns of the ci'owded journals. Woodcuts 
of a runaway negro with manacled hands, 
crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top- 
boots, who, having caught him, grasps him 
by the throat, agreeably diversify the pleas- 
ant text. The leading article protests against 
"that abominable and hellish doctrine of 
abolition which is repugnant alike to every 
law of God and nature." The delicate mam- 
ma, who smiles her acquiescence in this 
sprightly writing as she i-eads the paper in 
her cool piazza, quiets her youngest child 
who clings about her skirts by promising the 
boy " a whip to beat the little niggers with." 
But the negroes, little and big, are protected 
by public opinion. 

Let us try this public opinion by another 
test, which is important in three points of 
view : first, as showing how desperately tim- 
id of the public opinion slave-owners are, in 
their delicate descriptions of fugitive slaves 
in widelj^ circulated newspapers ; secondly, 
as showing how perfectly contented the 



slaves are, and how very seldom they run 
away; thirdly, as exhibiting their entire 
freedom from scar or blemish, or any mark 
of cruel infliction, as their pictures are drawn, 
not by lying abolitionists, but by their own 
truthful masters. 

The following are a few specimens of the 
advertisements in the public papers. It is 
only four years since the oldest among them 
appeared ; and others of the same nature 
continue to be published every day in shoals. 

" Ran away, Negress Caroline. Had on a 
collar with one prong turned down." 

" Ran away, a black woman Betsy. Had 
an Iron bar on her right leg." 

" Ran away, the negro Manuel. Much 
marked with irons." 

" Ran away, the negress Fanny. Had on 
an iron band about her neck." 

" Ran away, a negro boy about twelve 
years old. Had round his neck a chain dog- 
collar with ' De Lamport ' engraved on it." 

" Ran away, the negro Hown. Has a ring 
of iron on his left foot. Also, Grise, his wife, 
having a ring and chain on the left leg." 

" Ran away, a negro boy named James. 
Said boy was ironed when he left me." 

" Committed to jail, a man who calls his 
name John. He has a clog of iron on his 
right foot which will weigh four or five 
pounds." 

"Detained at'the police jail, the negro 
wench Myra. Has several marks of lash- 
ing, and has irons on her feet." 

" Ran away, a negro woman and two chil- 
dren. A few days before she went off, I 
burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of 
her face. I tried to make the letter M." 

" Ran away, a negro man named Henry ; 
his left eye out, some scars from a dirk on 
and under his left arm, and much scan-ed 
with the whip." 

" One hundred dollars reward, for a negro 
fellow, Pompey, 40 years old. He Is brand- 
ed on the left jaw." 

" Committed to jail, a negro man. Has 
no toes on the left foot." 

" Ran away, a negro woman named Ra- 
chel. Has lost all her toes except the large 
one." 

" Ran away, Sam. He was shot a short 
time since through the hand, and has several 
shots in his left arm and side." 

" Ran away, my negro man Dennis. Said 
negro has been shot in the left arm between 
the shoulder and elbow, which has para- 
lyzed the left hand." 

" Ran away, my negro man named Simon. 
He has been shot badly in his back and 
right arm." 



118 



AMERICAN NOTES 



" Ran away, a negro named Arthur. Has 
a considerable scar across his breast and each 
arm, made by a knife; loves to talk much 
of the goodness of God." 

" Twenty-five dollars reward for my man 
Isaac. He has a scar on his forehead, 
caused by a blow ; and one on his back, 
made by a shot from a pistol." 

" Ran away, a negro girl called Mary. 
Has a small scar over her eye, a good many 
teeth missing, the letter A is branded on 
her cheek and forehead." 

" Ran away, negro Ben. Has a scar on 
his right hand ; his thumb and forefinger 
being injured by being shot last fall. A 
part of the bone came out. He has also 
one or two large scars on his back and 
hips." 

" Detained at the jail, a mulatto, named 
Tom. Has a scar on the right cheek, and 
appears to have been burned with powder 
on the face." 

" Ran away, a negro man named Ned. 
Three of his fingers are drawn into the 
palm of his hand by a cut. Has a scar on 
the back of his neck, nearly half round, 
done by a knife." 

" Was committed to jail, a negro man. 
Says his name is Josiah. His back very 
much scarred by the whip ; and branded 
on the thigh and hips in three or four pla- 
ces, thus (J. M.). The rim of his right ear 
has been bit or cut off." 

" Fifty dollars reward for my fellow Ed- 
ward. He has a scar on the corner of his 
mouth, two cuts on and under his arm, and 
the letter E on his arm." 

" Ran away, negro boy Ellie. Has a 
scar on one of his arms from the bite of a 
dog-" 

" Ran away, from the plantation of James 
Surgette, the following negroes : Randal, 
has one ear ci'opped ; Bob, has lost one 
eye ; Kentucky Tom, has one jaw broken." 

" Ran away, Anthony. One of his ears 
cut off', and his left hand cut with an 
axe." 

" Fifty dollars reward for the negro Jim 
Blake. Has a piece cut out of each ear, 
and the middle finger of the left hand cut 
off" to the second joint." 

" Ran away, a negro woman named Ma- 
ria. Has a scar on one side of her cheek, 
by a cut. Some scars on her back." 

" Ran away, the mulatto wench Mary. 
Has a cut on the lefl arm, a scar on the 
left shoulder, and two upper teeth miss- 
ing." 

I should say, perhaps, in explanation of 
this latter piece of description, that among 



the other blessings which public opinion se- 
cures to the negroes, is the common prac- 
tice of violently punching out their teeth. 
To make them wear iron collars by day 
and night, and to worry them with dogs, 
are practices almost too ordinary to deserve 
mention. 

" Ran away, my man Fountain. Has 
holes in his ears, a scar on the right side of 
his forehead, has been shot in tlie hind parts 
of his legs, and is marked on the back with 
the whip." 

" Two hundred and fifty dollars reward 
for my negro man Jim. He is much marked 
with shot in his right thigh. The shot en- 
tered on the outside, half-way between the 
hip and knee joints." 

" Brought to jail, John. Left ear cropt." 

" Taken up, a negro man. Is very much 
scarred about the face and body, and has , j 
the left ear bit off." 1 

" Ran away, a black girl, named Mary. 
Has a scar on her cheek, and the end of ■ 
one of her toes cut off." 

" Ran away, my mulatto woman Judy. 
She has had her right arm broke." 

" Ran away, my negro man Levi. His 
left hand has been burnt, and I think the 
end of his forefinger is off." 

" Ran away, a negi-o man, named Wash- 
INGTOX. Has lost a part of his middle fin- 
ger, and the end of his little finger." 

" Twenty-five dollars reward for my man 
John. The tip of his nose is bit off." 

" Twenty-five dollars reward for the ne- 
gro slave Sally. Walks as though crippled , ( 
m the back." [' 

" Ran away, Joe Dennis. Has a small 
notch in one of his ears." 

" Ran away, negi-o boy Jack. Has a 
small crop out of his left ear." i 

" Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory, r 
Has a small piece cut out of the top of each '^ 
ear." 

AVhile upon the subject of ears, I may 
observe that a distinguished abolitionist in 
New York once received a negro's ear, 
which had been cut off close to the head, 
in a general-post letter. It was forAvarded 
by the free and independent gentleman who 
had caused it to be amputated, with a po- 
lite request that he would place the speci- 
men in his " collection." 

I couUl enlarge this catalogue with broken ^ 
arms, and broken legs, and gashed flesh, and 
missing teeth, an<l lacerated backs, and bites 
of dogs, and brands of red-hot irons innumer- 
able ; but as my readers will be sufficiently 
sickened and i-epelled already, I will turn to 
another branch of the subject. ' 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



These advertisements, of whicb a similar 
collection might be made for every year, and 
month, and week, and day, and which are 
coolly read in families as things of course, and 
as a part of the current news and small-talk, 
will serve to show how very much the slaves 
profit by public opinion, and how tender it is 
in their behalf. But it may be worth while 
to inquire how the slave-owners, and the 
class of society to which great numbers of 
them belong, defer to public opinion in their 
conduct, not to their slaves, but to each other ; 
how they are accustomed to restrain their 
passions ; what their bearing is among them- 
selves ; Avhether they are fierce or gentle ; 
whether their social customs be brutal, san- 
guinary, and violent, or bear the impress of 
civilization and refinement. 

That we may have no partial evidence 
from abolitionists in this inquiry, either, I 
will once more turn to their own newspapers, 
and I will confine myself this time to a selec- 
tion from paragraphs which appeared fi-om 
day to day during my visit to America, and 
which refer to occurrences happening while 
I was there. The Italics in these extracts, 
as in the foregoing, are my own. 

These cases did not all occur, it will be 
seen, in territory actually belonging to legal- 
ized Slave States, though most, and those 
the very worst among them did, as their 
counterparts constantly do ; but the jxisition 
of the scenes of action in reference to places 
immediately at hand, where slavery is the 
law, and the strong resemblance between 
that class of outrages and the rest, lead to 
the just presumption that the character of the 
parties concerned was formed in slave dis- 
tricts, and brutalized by slave customs. 

" Horrible Tragechj. 
" By a slip from The Southport Telegraph, 
Wisconsin, we learn that the Hon. Charles 
C. P. Arndt, Member of the Council for 
Brown County, was shot dead on the floor 
of the Council chamberhy JmwQS R. Vinyard, 
Member ii-om Grant County. The affair 
grew out of a nomination for Sheriff of 
Grant County. Mr. E. S. Baker was nom- 
inated and supported by ]\Ir. Amdt. This 
nomination was opposed by Vinyard, who 
wanted the appointment to vest in his own 
brother. In the course of debate, the de- 
ceased made some statements which Vinyard 
pronounced false, and made use of violent 
and insulting language, dealing largely in 
personalities, to which Mr. A. made no reply. 
After the adjournment, Mr. A. stepped up 
to Vinyaixl and requested him to retract, 
which he refused to do, repeating the offen- 



sive words. Mr. Arndt then made a blow 
at Vinyard, who stepped back a pace, drew 
a pistol, and shot him dead. 

" The issue appears to have been provoked 
on the part of Vinyard, who was determined 
at all hazards to defeat the appointment of 
Baker, and who, himself defeated, turned 
his ire and revenge upon the unfortunate 
Arndt." 

" T7ie Wisconsin Tragedy. "' ^ 

" Public indignation runs high in the Ter- 
ritory of Wisconsin, in relation to the mur- 
der of C. C. P. Arndt, in the Legislative 
Hall of the Territory. Meetings have been 
held in different counties of Wisconsin, d(!- 
no\mc\x\g the practice of secretlj bearing arms 
in the Legislative chambers of the coimtrij. 
We have seen the account of the expulsion 
of James R. Vinyard, the perpetrator of the 
bloody deed, and are amazed to hear, that, 
after this expulsion by those who saw Vin- 
yard kill Mr. Arndt in the presence of his 
aged father, who was on a visit to see his 
son, little dreaming that he was to witness 
his murder, Judge Dunn has discharged Vi)i- 
yard on bail. The Miners' Free Press speaks 
in terms of merited rebuke at the outrage 
upon the feelings of the people of Wisconsin. 
Vinyard was within arm's-length of Mr. 
Arndt, when he took such deadly aim at 
him that he never spoke. Vinyard might 
at pleasure, being so near, have only womid- 
ed him, but he chose to kill him." 

" Murder. 
" By a letter in a St. Louis paper of the 
14th, we notice a terrible outrage at Bur- 
lington, Iowa. A Mr. Bridgman, having had 
a difficulty with a citizen of the place, Mr. 
Ross, a brother-in-law of the latter provid- 
ed himself with one of Colt's revolving pis- 
tols, met Mr. B. in the street, and dis- 
charged the contents of five of the ban-els at 
him, each shot taking effect. Mr. B., though 
terribly wounded, and dying, returned the 
fire, and killed Ross on the spot." 

" Terrible Death of Robert Potter. 
" From the ' Caddo Gazette ' of the 12th 
inst., we learn the frightful death of Colonel 

Robert Potter He was beset in his 

house by an enemy, named Rose. He 
sprang from his couch, seized his gun, and 
in his night-clothes rushed from the house. 
For about two hundred yards his speed 
seemed to defy his pursuei-s ; but, getting 
entangled in a thicket, he was captured. 
Rose told him that he intended to act a gener- 
ous part, and give him a chance for his life. 
He then told Potter he might run, and he 



AMERICAN NOTES 






should not be inten-upted till he reached a 
certain distance. Potter started at the 
■word of command, and before a gun was 
fired he had reached the lake. His first im- 
pulse was to jump in the water and dive for 
it, which he did. Hose was close behind 
him, and formed his men on the bank ready 
to shoot him as he rose. In a few seconds 
he came up to l)rcathe ; and scarce had his 
head reached the surface of the water when 
it was completely riddled with the shot of 
their guns, and he sunk, to rise no more ! " 

"Murder in Arkansas. 
" We understand that a severe rencontre 
came off a few days since in the Seneca Na- 
tion, between Mr. Loose, the sub-agent of 
the mixed band of the Senecas, Quapaw, 
and Shawnees, and Mr. James Gillespie, of 
the mercantile firm of Thomas C. Allison 
and Co., of Maysville, Benton County, Ark., 
in which the latter was slain with a bowie- 
knife. Some diiRculty had for some time 
existed between the parties. It is said that 
Major Gillespie brought on the attack with 
a cane. A severe conflict ensued, during 
which two pistols were fired by Gillespie 
and one by Loose. Loose then stabbed 
Gillespie with one of those never-faiUng 
weapons, a bowie-knife. The death of 
Major G. is much regretted, as he was a lib- 
eral-minded and energetic man. Since the 
above was In type, we have learned that 
Major Allison has stated to some of our citi- 
zens In town that Mr. Loose gave the first 
blow. We forbear to give any particulars, 
as the matter loill be the subject of judicial in- 
vestigation." 

" Foul Deed. 
" The steamer Thames, just from Missou- 
ri River, brought us a handbill, offering a 
reward of 500 dollars for the person who as- 
sassinated Lilburn W. Baggs, late Governor 
of this State, at Independence, on the night 
of the Gth Inst. Governor Baggs, it is stat- 
ed In a written memorandum, was not dead 
but mortally wounded. 

" Since the above was written, we re- 
ceived a note from the clerk of the Thames, 
giving the following particulars. Gov. 
Baggs was shot by some villain on Friday, 
6tli inst.. In the evening, while sitting in a 
room in his own house in Independence. 
Ills son, a boy, hearing a report, ran into 
the room, and found the Governor sitting 
In his chair, with his jaw fallen down, and 
his head leaning back ; on discovering the 
injury done his father, he gave the alarm. 
Foot-tracks were found in the garden below 
the window, and a pistol picked up suj)- 



posed to have been overloaded, and thrown 
from the hand of the scoundrel who fired It. 
Three buck shots, of a heavy load, took ef- 
fect ; one going through his mouth, one into 
the brain, and another probably In or near 
the brain ; all going into the back part of 
the neck and head. The Governor was 
still alive on the morning of the 7th ; but 
no hopes for his recovery by his friends, and 
but slight hopes from his physicians. 

" A man was suspected, and the Sheriff 
most probably has possession of him by this 
time. 

" The pistol was one of a pair stolen some 
days previous from a baker in Independ- 
ence, and the legal authorities have the 
description of the other." 

" Rencontre. 

" An unfortunate affair took place on 
Friday evening In Chartres Street, in which 
one of our most respectable citizens received 
a dangerous wound, from a poniard, in tlu' 
abdomen. From the Bee (New Orleans) 
of yesterday we learn the following particu- 
lars. It appears that an article was pub- 
lished In the French side of the paper on 
Monday last, containing some strictures on 
the Artillery Battalion for firing their guns 
on Sunday morning, in answer to tliose 
from the Ontario and Woodbury, and there- 
by much alarm was caused to the families 
of those persons who were out all night pre- 
serving the peace of the city. Major C. 
Gaily, Commander of the Battalion, resent- 
ing this, called at the office and demanded 
the author's name ; that of M. P. Arpin was 
given to him, who was absent at the time. 
Some angry words then jiassed with one of 
the proprietors, and a challenge followed ; 
the fi-Iends of both 2:)artles tried to arrange 
the affair, but failed to do so. On Friday 
evening, about seven o'clock, Major Gaily 
met Mr. P. Arpin in Chartres Street, and 
accosted him, ' Are you Mr. Arpin ? ' 

" ' Yes, sir.' 

" ' Then I have to tell you that you are 
a — ' (applying an appropriate epithet). 

" ' I shall remind you of your words, sir.' 

" ' But I have said I would break my 
cane on your shoulders.' 

" ' I know it, but I have not yet received 
the blow.' 

" ' At these words Major Gaily, having a 
cane In his hands, struck Mr. Arpin acro.^s 
the face, and the latter drew a poniard from 
his pocket and stabbed Major Gaily in the 
abdomen. 

" Fears are entertained that the wound 
will be mortal. We understand that Mr. 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



Arpin has given security for his appearance 
at the Criminal Court to answer the charge." 

" Affray in Mississippi. 
" On the 27th ult., in an affray near Car- 
thage, Leake County, Mississippi, between 
James Cottingham and John Wilburn, the 
hitter was shot by the former, and so horribly 
wounded that there was no hope of his re- 
covery. On the 2d instant there was an 
alfray at Carthage between A. C. Sharkey 
and George GoS", in which the latter was 
shot, and thought mortally wounded. Shar- 
key delivered himself up to the authorities, 
but changed his mind and escaped!" 

'■'■ Personal Encounter. 
" An encounter took place in Sparta, a 
few days since, between the bai'keeper of 
an hotel and a man named Bury. It ap- 
pears that Bury had become somewhat 
noisy, and that the barkeeper, determined to 
]^eserue order, had threatened to shoot Bury, 
whereupon Bury drew a pistol and shot the 
barkeeper down. He was not dead at the 
last accounts, but slight hopes were enter- 
tained of his recovery." 

" Duel. 
"The clerk of the Steamboat Tribune in- 
forms us that another duel was fought on 
Tuesday last, by Mr. Robbins, a bank offi- 
cer in Vicksburg, and Mr. Fall, the editor 
of the Vicksburg Sentinel. According to 
the arrangement, the parties had six pistols 
each, which, after the word ' Fire ! ' they were 
to discharge as fast as they pleased. Fall 
fired two pistols without effect. Mr. Rob- 
bins's first shot took effect in Fall's thigh, who 
fell and was unable to continue the combat." 

" Affray in Clarke County. 

" An unfortunate affray occurred in Clarke 
County (Mo), near Waterloo, on Tuesday 
the 19th ult., v/hich originated in settling 
the partnership concerns of Messrs. M'Kane 
and JM'AlUster, who had been engaged in 
the business of distilling, and resulted in the 
deatli of the latter, who was shot down by 
Mr. M'Kane because of his attempting to 
take possession of seven barrels of whiskey, 
the property of M'Kane, which had been 
knocked otf to M'AUister at a sheriff's sale 
at one dollar per barrel. M'Kane immedi- 
ately fled, and at the latest dates had not 
been taken. 

" Thu> unfortunate affray caused consid- 
erable excitement in the neighliorhood, as 
both the parties were men witli large fami- 
lies depending upon them, and stood well 
in the community." 



I will qnote but one more paragraph, 
which, by reason of its monstrous absurdity, 
may be a rehef to these atrocious deeds. 

" Affair of Honor. 
" We have just heard the particulars of a 
meeting which took place on Six Mile 
Island, on Tuesday, between two young 
bloods of our city, — Samuel Thurston, aged 
fifteen, and William Hine, aged thirteen 
years. They were attended by young gen- 
tlemen of the same age. The weapons used 
on the occasion were a couple of Dickson's 
best rifles ; the distance, thirty yards. They 
took one fire without any damage being sus- 
tained by either party, except the ball of 
Thurston's gun passing through the crown 
of Hine's hat. Through the intercession of 
the Board of Honor, the challenge was with- 
drawn, and the difference amicably adjust- 
ed." 

If the reader will picture to himself the 
kind of Board of Honor which amicably ad- 
justed the difference between these two lit- 
tle boys, who in any other part of the world 
would have been amicably adjusted on two 
porters' backs, and soundly flogged witli 
birchen rods, he will be possessed, no doubt, 
with as strong a sense of its ludicrous char- 
acter as that which sets me laughing when- 
ever its image rises up before me. 

Now I appeal to every human mind im- 
bued with the commonest of common sense, 
and the commonest of common humanity, — 
to all dispassionate, reasoning creatures, of 
any shade of ojiinion, — and ask, with these 
revolting evidences of the state of society 
which exists in and about the slave districts 
of America before them, can they have a 
doubt of the real condition of the slave, or 
can they for a moment make a compromise 
between the institution, or any of its fla- 
grant fearful features, and their own just 
consciences ? Will they say of any tale of 
cruelty and horror, however aggravated in 
degree, that it is improbable, when they can 
turn to the public prints, and, running, read 
such signs as these laid before them by the 
men who rule the slaves, in their own acts, 
and under their own hands. 

Do we not know that the worst deformity 
and ugliness of slavery are at once the cause 
and the effect of the reckless license taken 
by these free-born outlaws ? Do we not 
know that the man Avho has been born and 
bred among its wrongs ; who has seen in his 
childhood husbands obliged at the word of 
command to flog their wives ; women, inde- 
cently compelled to hold up their own gar- 



122 



AMERICAN NOTES 



ments that men might lay the heavier 
stripes upon their legs, driven and harried 
by brutal overseers in their time of travail, 
and becoming mothers on the field of toil, 
under the very lash itself; who has read in 
youth, and seen his virgin sisters read, de- 
seriptions of runaway men and women, and 
their disfigured persons, which could not be 
published elsewhere of so much stock upon 
a farm, or at a show of beasts ; — do we not 
know tliat that man, whenever his wrath is 
kindled up, will be a brutal savage? Do 
we not know that, as he is a coward in his 
domestic life, stalking among his shrinking 
men and women slaves armed with his 
heavy whip, so he will be a coward out of 
doors, and, carrying cowards' weajjons hid- 
den in his breast, will shoot men down and 
stab them when he quarrels ? And if our 
reason did not teach us this and much be- 
yond, — if we were such idiots as to close 
our eyes to that fine mode of training which 
rears up such men, — should we not know 
that they who among their equals stab and 
pistol in the legislative halls, and in the 
counting-house, and on the market-place, 
and in all the elsewhere peaceful jiursuits of 
life, must be to their dejiendants, even 
though they were free servants, so many 
merciless and unrelenting tyrants ? 

What ! shall we declaim against the ig- 
norant peasantry of Ireland, and mince the 
matter when these American task-masters 
are in question ? Shall we cry shame on 
the brutality of those Avho ham-string cattle, 
and spare tlie lights of Freedom upon earth 
who notch the ears of men and women, cut 
pleasant posies in the shrinking flesh, learn 
to write with pens of red-hot iron on the 
human face, rack their poetic fancies for 
liveries of mutilation which their slaves 
shall wear for life and carry to the grave, 
break living limbs as did the soldiery who 
mocked and slew the Saviour of the world, 
and set defenceless ci'eatures up for targets ? 
Shall we whimper over legends of the tor- 
tures practised on each other by the Pagan 
Indians, and smile upon the cruelties of 
Christian men ? Shall we, so long as these 
things last, exult above the scattered rem- 
nants of that stately race, and triumph in 
the wliite enjoyment of their broad posses- 
sions ? Rather, for me, restore the forest 
and the Indian village ; in lieu of stars and 
stripes, let some poor feather flutter In the 
breeze ; replace the streets and scjuares by 
wigwams ; and, though the death-song of a 
hundred haughty warriors fill the air, it will 
be music to the shi-iek of one unhappy 
slave. 



On one theme, which Is commonly be- 
fore our eyes, and in respect of which our 
national character is changing fast, let the 
plain Truth be spoken, and let us not, like 
dastards, beat about the bush by hinting at 
the Spaniard and the fierce Italian. When 
knives are drawn by Englishmen in conflict, 
let it be said and known : " We owe this 
change to Republican Slavery. These are 
the weapons of Freedom. With sharp 
points and edges such as these Liberty in 
America hews and hacks her slaves ; or, 
failing that pursuit, her sons devote them to 
a better use, and turn them on each other." 



CHAPTER XVm. 

COXCLUDIXG REMARKS. 

There are many passages in this book 
where I have been at some pains to res?st 
the temptation of troubling my readers with 
my own deductions and conclusions ; pre- 
ferring that they should judge for themselves 
from such premises as I have laid before 
them. My only object in the outset was to 
carry them with me faithfully wheresoever 
I went ; and that task I have discharged. 

But I may be pardoned if on such a 
theme as the general character of the 
American people, and the general character 
of their social system as presented to a 
stranger's eyes, I desire to express my own 
opinions In a few words, before I bring 
these volumes to a close. 

They are by nature frank, brave, cordial, 
hospitable, and affectionate. Cultivation 
and refinement seem but to enhance their 
warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm ; 
and it is the jjossesslon of these latter quali- 
ties in a most remarkable degree which 
renders an educated American one of the 
most endearing and most generous of friends. 
I never was so won upon as by this class ; 
never yielded up my full confidence and 
esteem so readily and plcasurably as to 
them ; never can make again in half a year 
so many friends for whom I seem to enter- 
tain the regard of half a life. 

These qualities are natural, I implicitly 
believe, to the whole people. That they 
are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in 
their growth among the mass, and that 
there are influences at work which endan- 
ger them still more, and give but little 
present promise of their healthy restoration, 
IS a truth that ought to be told. 

It is an essential part of every national 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



123 



character to pique itself mightily upon its 
faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or 
its wisdom from their very exaggeration. 
One great blemish in the popular mind of 
America, and the prolific parent of an in- 
numerable brood of evils, is Universal Dis- 
trust. Yet the American citizen plumes 
himself upon this spirit, even when he is 
sufficiently dispassionate to perceive the 
ruin it works, and will often adduce it, in 
spite of his own reason, as an instance of 
the great sagacity and acuteness of the peo- 
ple, and their superior shrewdness and in- 
dependence. 

/ " You carry," says the stranger, " this 
' jealousy and distrust into every transaction 
of public life. By repelling worthy men 
from your legislative assemblies, it has bred 
up a class of candidates for the sufTi-age 
who, in their every act, disgrace your In- 
stitutions and your people's choice. It has 
rendered you so fickle and so given to 
change, that your inconstancy has passed 
into a proverb ; for you no sooner set up 
an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it 
down and dash it into fragments ; and this 
because directly you reward a benefactor 
or a public servant you distrust him, merely 
because he is rewarded ; and immediately 
apply yourselves to find out, either that 
you have been too bountiful in your ac- 
knowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. 
Any man who attains a high place among 
you, from the President downwards, may 
date his downfall from that moment; for 
any printed lie that any notorious villain 
pens, although it militate directly against 
the character and conduct of a life, appeals 
at once to your distrust and is believed. 
You will strain at a gnat In the way of 
trustfulness and confidence, however fairly 
won and well deserved ; but you will swal- 
low a whole caravan of camels, if they be 
laden with unworthy doubts and mean sus- 
picions. Is this well, think you, or likely 
to elevate the character of the governors 
or the governed among you ? " 

The answer is invariably the same : 
" There 's freedom of opinion here, you 
know. Every man thinks for himself, and 
we are not to be easily overreached. That 's 
how our people come to be suspicious." 

Another prominent feature is the love of 
" smart " dealing, which gilds over many a 
swindle and gross breach of trust, many a 
defalcation, public and private, and enables 
many a knave to hold his head up with the 
best who well deserves a halter ; though It 
has not been without its retributive opera- 
tion, for this smartness has done more in a 



few years to impair the public credit, and 
to cripple the public resources, than dull 
honesty, however rash, could have effected 
in a century. The merits of a broken 
speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a suc- 
cessful scoundrel, are not gauged by its or 
his observance of the golden rule, " Do as 
you would be done by," but are considered 
with reference to their smartness. I rec- 
ollect, on both occasions of our passing that 
Ill-fated Cairo on the Mississippi, remarking 
on the bad effects such gross deceits must 
have when they exploded, in generating a 
want of confidence abroad, and discourag- 
ing foreign investment ; but I was given to 
understand that this was a very smart 
scheme, by which a deal of money had been 
made, and that its smartest feature was that 
they forgot these things abroad in a very 
short time, and speculated again as freely 
as ever. The following dialogue I have 
held a hundred times : " Is It not a very 
disgraceful circumstance that such a man 
as So-and-so should be acquiring a large 
property by the most Infamous and odious 
means, and, notwithstanding all the crimes 
of which he has been guilty, should be tol- 
erated and abetted by your citizens ? He 
Is a public nuisance. Is he not ? " " Yes, 
six-." " A convicted liar ? " " Yes, sir." 
" He has been kicked, and cufled, and 
caned ? " " Yes, sir." " And he is utter- 
ly dishonorable, debased, and profligate ? " 
" Yes, sir." " In the name of wonder, then, 
what Is his merit ? " " Well, sir, he is a 
smart man." 

In like manner all kinds of deficient and 
Impolitic usages are referred to the national 
love of trade ; though, oddly enough, It 
would be a weighty charge against a for- 
eigner that he regarded the Americans as a 
trading people. The love of trade Is as- 
signed as a reason for that comfortless cus- 
tom, so very prevalent In country towns, 
of married persons living in hotels, having 
no fireside of their own, and seldom meet- 
ing from early morning until late at night 
but at the hasty public meals. The love of 
trade is a reason why the literature of 
America is to remain forever unprotected : 
" For we are a trading people, and don't 
care for poetry " ; though we do, by the 
way, profess to be very proud of our poets ; 
while healthful amusements, cheerful means 
of recreation, and wholesome fancies, must 
fade before the stern utilitarian joys of 
trade. 

These three characteristics are strongly 
presented at every turn, full in the stran- 
ger's view. But the foul growth of Ameri- 



124 



AMERICAN NOTES 



ca has a more tangled root than this, and 
it strikes its fibres deep in its licentious 
Press. 

Schools may be erected, East, West, 
North, and South; pupils be taught, and 
masters reared, by scores upon scores of 
thousands ; colleges may thrive, churches 
may be crammed, temperance may be dif- 
ibsed, and advancing knowledge in all other 
forms walk through the land with giant 
strides ; but while the newspaper press of 
America is in, or near, its present abject 
state, high moral improvement in that coun- 
try is hopeless. Year by year it must and 
will go back ; year by year the tone of pub- 
lic feeling must sink lower down ; year by 
year the Congress and the Senate must be- 
come of less account before all decent men ; 
and year by year the memory of the Great 
Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged 
more and more in the bad life of their de- 
generate child. 

Among the herd of journals which are 
published in the States there are some, the 
reader scarcely need be told, of character 
and credit. From personal intercourse 
with accomplished gentlemen connected 
with publications of this class, I have de- 
rived both pleasure and profit. But the 
name of these is Few, and of the others Le^ 
gion; and the inlluence of the good is pow- 
erless to counteract the mortal poison of the 
bad. 

Among the gentry of America, among 
the well-informed and moderate, in the 
learned professions, at the bar and on the 
bench, there is, as there can be, but one 
opinion, in reference to the vicious charac- 
ter of these infixmous journals. It is some- 
times contended — I Avill not say strangely, 
for it is natural to seek excuses for such a 
disgrace — that their influence is not so 
great as a visitor would suppose. I must 
be pardoned for saying that there is no war- 
rant for this plea, and that every fact and 
circumstance tends directly to the opposite 
conclusion. 

When any man, of any gi-ade of desert in 
intellect or character, can climb to any pub- 
lic distinction, no matter what, in America, 
without first grovelling down upon the 
earth, and bending the knee before this 
monster of depravity ; when any private 
excellence is safe from its attacks ; when 
any social confidence is left unbroken by it, 
or any tie of social decency and honor is 
held in the least regard ; when any man in 
that Free Country has freedom of opinion, 
and presumes to think for himself, and speak 
for himself, without humble reference to a 



censorship which, for its rampant ignorance 
and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and 
despises in his heart ; when those who most 
acutely feel its infamy and the rej)roach it 
casts upon the nation, and who most de- 
nounce it to each other, dare to set their 
heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight 
of all men ; then I will believe that its in- 
fluence is lessening, and men are returning, 
to their manly senses. But while that 
Press has its evil eye in every house, and 
its black hand in every appointment in the 
state, from a president to a postman ; while, 
with ribald slander for its only stock in 
trade, it is the standard literature of an 
enormous class, who nmst find their reading 
in a newspaper, or they will not read at 
all ; so long must its odium be upon the 
country's head, and so long must the evil it 
works be plainly visible in the Republic. 

To those who are accustomed to the lead- 
ing English journals, or to the respectable 
journals of the Continent of Europe, — to ■, 
those who are accustomed to anything else 
in print and paper, — it would be impossi- 
ble, without an amount of extract for which 
I have neither space nor inclination, to 
convey an adequate idea of this Irlghtful 
engine In America. But if any man desire 
confirmation of my statement on this head, 
let him repair to any place in this city of 
London where scattered numbers of these 
publications are to be found, and there let 
him form his own oi)IuIon.* 

It would be well, there can be no doubt, 
for the American people as a whole. If they 
loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat 
more. It would be well If there were 
greater encouragement to lightness of heart 
and gayety, and a Avider cultivation of what 
is beautiful without being eminently and 
directly useful. But here, I think, the gen- 
eral remonstrance, " We are a new coun- 
try," which is so often advanced as an ex- 
cuse for defects which are quite unjustifiable 
as being of right only the slow growth of an 
old one, may be very reasonably urged ; and 
I yet hope to hear of there being some other 
national amusement In the United States 
besides newspaper politics. 

They certainly are not a humorous peo- 
ple, and their temperament always impressed 

Or let 



* Note to thk Ouigixal Edition. 
liim refer to an able and perfectly truthful arti- 
cle in The Foreign Quarterly Review, published 
in the present month of October ; to which my 
attention has been attracted since these sheets 
have been passing through the press. He will 
find some specimens there, by no means remark- 
able to any man who has been in America, but 
sufficiently striking to one who has not. 



FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. 



125 



me as being of a dull and gloomy character. 
In slirewdness of remark, and a certain 
cast-iron quaintness, the Yankees, or people 
of New England, unquestionably take the 
lead, as they do in most other evidences of 
intelligence. But in travelling about out 
of the large cities, — as I have remarked in 
former parts of these volumes," — I was quite 
oppressed by the prevailing seriousness and 
melancholy air of business, which was so 
general and unvarying, that at every new 
town I came to I seemed to meet the very 
same people whom I had left behind me at 
the last. Such defects as are perceptible 
in the national manners seem to me to be 
referable, in a great degree, to this cause ; 
which has generated a dull, sullen persist- 
ence in coarse usages, and rejected the 
graces of life as undeserving of attention. 
There is no doubt that Washington, who 
was always most scrupulous and exact on 
points of ceremony, perceived the tendency 
towards this mistake, even in his time, and 
did his utmost to correct it. 

I cannot hold with other writers on these 
subjects that the prevalence of various forms 
of dissent in America is in any way attribu- 
table to the non-existence there of an es- 
tabhshed church ; indeed, I think the tem- 
per of the people, if it admitted of such 
an Institution being founded amongst them, 
would lead them to desei't it, as a matter of 
course, merely because it loas established. 
But, supposing it to exist, I doubt its prob- 
able efficacy in summoning tlie wandering 
sheep to one great fold, simply because of 
the immense amount of dissent which pre- 
vails at home ; and because I do not find 
in America any one form of religion with 
which we in Europe or even in England 
are unacquainted. Dissenters resort thither 
in great numbers, as other people do, simply 
because it is a land of resort ; and great set- 
tlements of them are founded, because 
ground can be purchased, and towns and 
villages reared, where there were none of 
the human creation before. But even the 
Shakers emigrated from England ; our 
country is not unknown to Mr. Joseph 
Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or to his 
benighted disciples ; I have beheld religious 
scenes myself in some of our populous towns 
which can hardly be surpassed by an Amer- 
ican camp-meeting; and I am not aware 
that any instance of superstitious imposture 
on the one hand, and superstitious credulity 
on the other, has had its origin in the United 
States, which we cannot more than parallel 
Ijy the precedents of Mrs. Southcotc, Mary 
Tofts the rabbit-breeder, or even Mr. Thom 



of Canterbury, — which latter case arose 
some time after the Dark Ages had passed 
away. 

The Republican Institutions of America 
undoubtedly lead the people to assert their 
self-respect, and their equality ; but a trav- 
eller is bound to bear those Institutions in 
his mind, and not hastily to resent the near 
approach of a class of strangers who, at 
home, would keep aloof This characteris- 
tic, when it was tinctured with no foolish 
pride, and stopped short of no lionest ser- 
vice, never offended me; and I very sel- 
dom, if ever, experienced its rude or unbe- 
coming display. Once or twice it was 
comically developed, as in the following 
case ; but this was an amusing incident, 
and not the rule or near it. 

I wanted a pair of boots at a certain 
town, for I had none to travel in, but those 
with the memorable cork soles, which were 
much too hot for the fiery decks of a steam- 
boat. I therefore sent a message to an 
artist in boots, importing, with my compli- 
ments, that I should be happy to see him, if 
he would do me the poUte favor to call. 
He very kindly returned for answer, that 
he would " look round " at six o'clock that 
evening. 

I was lying on the sofa, with a book and 
a wineglass, at about that time, when the 
door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff 
cravat, within a year or two on either side 
of thirty, entered, in his hat and gloves, 
walked up to the looking-glass, arranged 
his hair, took off his gloves, slowly pro- 
duced a measure fi-om the uttermost depths 
of his coat-pocket, and requested me, in a 
languid tone, to " unfix " my straps. I com- 
plied, but looked with some curiosity at his 
hat, which was still upon his head. It 
might have been that, or it might have 
been the heat, — but he took it off. Then 
he sat himself down on a chair opposite to 
me, rested an arm on each knee, and, lean- 
ing forward very much, took from the 
ground, by a great effort, the specimen of 
metropolitan workmanship which I had just 
pulled off; whistling, pleasantly, as he did 
so. He turned it over and over, surveyed 
it with a contempt no language can express, 
and inquired if I wished him to fix me a 
boot like that. I courteously replied, that, 
provided the boots were large enough, I 
would leave the rest to him ; that, if conven- 
ient and practicable, I shoukl not object to 
their bearing some resemblance to the mod- 
el then before him ; Init that I would be 
entirely guided by, and would beg to leave 
the whole subject to, his judgment and dis- 



126 



AMERICAN NOTES. 



cretion. " You ain't partickler about this 
scoop in the heel, 1 suppose, then V " says 
he : " we don't foller that heri'." I repeated 
my last observation. lie looked at liimselt" 
in the glass again, went closer to it to dash 
a grain or two of dust out of the corner 
of his eye, and settled his cravat. All this 
time my leg and foot were in the air. 
" Nearly ready, sir ? " I incpiired. " Well, 
pretty nigh," he said ; " keep steady." I 
kept as steady as I could, both in foot and 
face ; and having by this time got the dust 
out, and found his pencil-case, he measured 
me, and made the necessary notes. When 
he had finished, he fell into his old attitude, 
and, taking up the boot again, mused for 
some time. " And this," he said, at last, 
" is an English boot, is it ? This is a 
London boot, eh ? " " Tliat, sir," I replied, 
" is a London boot." He mused over it 
again, after the manner of Hamlet with 
Yorick's skull; nodded his head, as who 
should say, " I pity the Institutions that led 
to the production of this boot ! " rose, put 
up his pencil, notes, and paper, — glancing 
at himself in the glass all the time, — put 
on his hat, dx-ew on his gloves very slowly, 
and finally walked out. When he had been 
gone about a minute, the door reopened, 
and his hat and his head reappeared. He 
looked round the room, and at the boot 
again, which was still lying on the floor, ap- 
peared thoughtful for a minute, and then 
said, " Well, good arternoon." " Good after- 
noon, sir," said I ; and that was the end of 
the interview. 

There is but one other head on which I 
wish to oiler a remark ; and that has refer- 
ence to the public health. In so vast a 
country, where there are thousands of mil- 
lions of acres of land yet unsettled and un- 
cleared, and on every rood of which vege- 
table decomposition is annually taking 
place ; wliere there are so many great 
rivers, and such opposite varieties of cli- 
mate, there cannot fall to be a great amount 
of sickness at certain seasons. But I may 
venture to say, after conversing with many 
members of the medical profession in 
America, that I am not singular in the 



nv 



opinion that much of the disease which 
does prevail might be avoided, if a few 
conunon precautions were observed, (ireat- 
er means of personal cleanliness are indls- 
j)ensable to tills end ; the custom of hastily 
swallowing large quantities of animal food, 
three times a day, and rushing back to sed- 
entary pursuits after each meal, must be 
changed; the gentler sex must go more 
wisely clad, and take more healtliful exer- 
cise ; and in the latter clause the males 
must be included also. Above all, in jiub- 
lic institutions, and throughout the wliole 
of every town and city, the system of ven- 
tilation, and drainage, and removal of 
impurities requires to be thoroughly revised. 
There Is no local Legislature in America 
which may not study Mr. Cliadwick's excel- 
lent Report upon the Sanitary Condition 
of our Laboring Classes with immense ad- 
vantage. 



I HAVE now arrived at the close of this 
book. I have little reason to believe, from 
certain warnings I have had since I returned 
to England, that it will be tenderly or fa- 
vorably received by the American people ; 
and as I have written the Truth in relation 
to the mass of those who form their judg- 
ments and express their opinions, it will be 
seen that I have no desire to court, by any 
adventitious means, the popular applause. 

It is enough for me to know, that what I 
have set down in these pages cannot cost 
me a single friend on the other side of the 
Atlantic who is, in anything, deserving of 
the name. For the rest, I put my trust im- 
plicitly in the spirit in which they have 
been conceived and penned ; and I can 
bide my time. 

I have made no reference to my recep- 
tion, nor have I suffered it to influence me 
in what I have Avritten ; for, in either case, 
I should have offered but a sorry acknowl- 
edgment, compared with that I bear within 
my breast towards those partial readers of 
my former books, across the Water, who 
met me with an open hand, and not with 
one that closed upon an iron muzzle. 



EO 



i 4 



Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, BigdoW, & Co. 



A V , « _ <>, A ... •**_ A V - - - "O. 




